Archive | July, 2014

Fantasy Civil War Idea

31 Jul

I was reading the new biography of General Lee (Clouds of Glory, well worth a read) and I started to have an idea. Then a few more ideas …

There’s a fantasy world where magic exists (yeah, surprise, surprise). Magic needs a talent to use, but once you have that talent you can call on the Mana and use it to power your spells (a little like The Magic Goes Away, but I’m not sure if Mana can be actually depleted on a global scale or not.) Generally speaking, you need lots of practice to learn how to use magic on a large scale safely, with an increasing risk of madness the more power you channel (there are ways to speed up the process, but they also result in increasing the risk of going bonkers.)

There aren’t actually that many magic users, as magic tends to kill its practitioners if they’re not very careful. Those that do tend to survive do so because they were taught by another magic user, who shares his carefully-acuminated knowledge with his apprentice in exchange for service of one kind or another. Magicians rarely share knowledge outside the master-apprentice system, as they see their private discoveries as something to trade, not to give away freely.

For generations, therefore magic has largely run in a handful of bloodlines lucky enough to have enough magicians survive long enough to master their powers.

Once you get enough knowledge, there are plenty of options, from ‘conventional’ magic to making bargains with demons and suchlike.

The principle power unit in this world, at least for the story, is the High Kingdom of Unnamed (I haven’t started working out the nitty-gritty.) Roughly 200 years before the start of the story, a monarch of a small kingdom launched a series of wars against his neighbours, rather like Alexander the Great. He succeeded in uniting around forty kingdoms, assorted minor political units and suchlike under his banner. Surprisingly, he managed to pass the kingdom down to his eldest son, who proclaimed himself the High King.

There’s something of a gap between the two halves of the kingdom, however. The east is very traditional – it borders various other independent kingdoms, so it tends to think in terms of land power and keeping the peons under control. (Think of France or Russia in 1800). There’s no such thing as social mobility in the east – everyone knows their place, from the serfs working the lands to the nobility in the high castles.

The west, however, is built around smaller kingdoms with access to the sea. Think the Netherlands or Britain in 1700-1800. They have a far more open mindset, greater social mobility and a vigorous approach to innovation. There’s not THAT liberal by our standards, but they’re definitely more open to people rising as far as their ability will take them.

This has had a major impact on magic, starting with the introduction of what we might as well call disciplined magic. Basically, some low-power magicians set up an academy (a cross between a school, a university and a research lab) into how magic actually worked, pooling their knowledge and building on it. This new scientific approach to magic, studying how mana actually worked, allowed them to develop a certain form of magic technology (magitek?) which revolutionised the world. The West loved these innovations – the East hated them.

East-trained magicians tend to be more powerful, West-trained magicians tend to be more numerous.

As of now, the High King is dead (probably assassinated, though I’m not entirely sure.) There is no male heir – there are only a pair of sisters, Princesses Alpha and Beta. Alpha is legally the heir, as there are no male heirs, but there has never been a High Queen before and many of the power elite are concerned about allowing a female to take the throne. (Britain went through something similar when a female ruler stepped up to the plate more than once.) The nobles of the East see this as an opportunity to reverse the changes of the past – they want to capture and marry off the princess to one of their number and crush the free-thinking West. The West sees this as a chance to change the ways of the past still further.

The East attempts to mount a coup. It fails – and outright civil war breaks out between the two sides.



Study In Slaughter (Schooled In Magic III)–Available Now!

26 Jul

The sequel to Schooled In Magic and Lessons In Etiquette

Brimming with new ideas for magical research, Emily returns to Whitehall School for her Second Year, only to discover that things are going to be different. Her friends have become sports-mad fanatics, her new roommates are strangers to her, her new classes are far harder and one of the teachers seems to actively dislike her. As she returns to the comforting routine of the only place she considers home, she finds that Second Year will be far harder than the first.

But as the students settle in to continue their studies, it rapidly becomes clear that all is far from well at Whitehall. There’s a murderer running loose in the school. A murderer who may be a newborn necromancer. And then there’s the spy watching Emily from the shadows, waiting for her to make one tiny, but fatal mistake …

As the darkness falls on Whitehall, Emily may be their salvation…or the person who damns them all.

Download a Free Sample, then purchase from the links on this pageAnnotations hereReviews welcome!

NEW Kindle Book–Their Darkest Hour

21 Jul


-HG Wells


Caught up in these events are a handful of ordinary people, struggling to survive. The Prime Minister, forced into hiding, and an unscrupulous politician looking to find fame and power by serving the aliens. Soldiers fighting an insurgency and senior officers trying desperately to find the key to driving the aliens away from Earth; police officers faced with a choice between collaboration or watching the aliens brutalise the civilian population. And ordinary citizens, trying to survive a world turned upside down.

But resistance seems futile and the aliens appear unstoppable – and the entire population is caught in the middle. As the alien grip tightens, the last best hope for freedom lies with those who will never surrender…and are prepared to pay any price for the liberation of Earth.

Download a Free Sample, then buy from Amazon here!

Quick Update

11 Jul

Hi, everyone

This has definitely been an annoying week. Put bluntly, I messed up the timing and wound up finishing The School of Hard Knocks last week, but as we’re meant to be going to Australia next week (is there anyone in Sidney, Canberra or Melbourne on this blog/FB page?) Then there will be a handful of days in KL before we go to the Highlands of Malaysia for family gatherings.

What I’ve decided to do, right now, is start TEC9 when we get back from Australia and then take a 5-day break in the middle of writing. I hate doing that, but we will see how it goes.

In other news, I’ve spent the week plotting … stories, that is. I now have a workable plot for TEC9, BATG II, Bookworm III and Warspite, which will be the successor series to Ark Royal. My planned writing schedule is:

The Thin Blue Line (TEC 9)

The Shadow of Cinnititus (BATG II)

Either Hard Lessons or Warspite

Bookworm III

Either Hard Lessons or Warspite

I’ve also been trying to write the afterword for The Thin Blue Line, but so far it is refusing to materialise. Sigh.

On longer-term plans, I’m planning a three-book alternate history series set in 1990, where the Third Reich won its side of World War Two, then settled down into a long Cold War with America and Britain. After several decades of economic and political mismanagement, however, the Reich is on the verge of falling apart and breaking into civil war. Interested?

And, in the ‘no s***, Sherlock’ category, Malaysian bureaucracy is infinitively more efficient than British bureaucracy. Time to get a Malaysian visa for me – 1 day. Time to get a British visa for Aisha – 9 months and counting. <Goes off to bang head on wall>


Ark Royal Audio Books

9 Jul

Hi, everyone



New FREE Books

8 Jul

Hi, everyone

I’ve uploaded three new free books to the site (blurbs and links below). As always, these are completely free, but if you like them please feel free to visit the Cookie Jar and tip me <grin>.

Shifting Sands will probably not be revised. It was, in many ways, the early version of Schooled In Magic and, as such, would need to be revamped completely before it could be revised. The other two may be revised at some later date, if you’re interested.


Shifting Sands

On an alternate world, the Brotherhood of Mages has a problem. Their control over the sprites – magical creatures that must do their bidding – is slipping. Magic is going out of their world and, in the wake of its slow departure, barbarian tribes are encroaching on what remains of their civilisation. And then one Brother has an idea. They can summon someone to help them.

Alex, a teacher from our world, finds herself in a land dominated by magic, a barbarian world unaware of even the simplest laws of science. Trapped, threatened with enslavement or death, Alex must struggle to build a new life for herself, fighting to introduce a whole new way of thinking.

But the sandstorms are advancing and, behind them, the barbarian hordes. If she fails, the whole world will be buried forever, lost beneath the sands.

The Lady of Shallot

What is a Land without a King?

Ever since the death of King Arthur, Merlin, the first-born son of Satan Himself, has ruled the world. For a thousand years, science and sorcery have co-existed, creating a world where railways run beside unicorns, while dragons fly through the sky and mermaids swim alongside steamships in the great oceans. Humanity lives beside the supernatural world, enjoying a peace that has endured ever since the Empire was created. But now Merlin’s time is running out…

When Merlin departs, anarchy threatens to destroy the Empire. The Great Lords see a chance to claim supreme power; Commoners fight for the right to be free, while dark sorcerers launch a brutal war to claim the Empire.

But all of those threats are only the beginning. Without Merlin, countless natural balances have been overturned. And the Human Race may be about to pay the price for his crimes…

Thunder and Lightning

They never saw it coming…

In the year 2100, humanity has finally started to reach out towards the stars. The moon is strewn with colonies and outposts, Mars is slowly being terraformed and human explorers have reached as far as Pluto and beyond. The asteroid belt teems with life, technology is slowly solving all of humanity’s ills, and the first starship is being readied for its historic journey to a new world. And then everything changes…

Samra Hussein, an Astronomer, discovered the alien fleet heading towards the Solar System. She thinks the aliens cannot be hostile; they have come a very long way to meet the human race. She’s in for a surprise…

The President of America is grappling with the problems caused by humanity’s advances into space. There are increasing tensions between the Great Powers, rebellious tendencies on the moon, and the Rockrats flout the Great Powers on a regular basis. The alien contact seems to herald the dawn of a brand new age…

Captain Christopher Fardell, United States Army, was fighting the endless war against the Wreckers when he heard the news. Little does he know that he’s about to be on the frontline of a war out of nightmares…

Jake Ellsworth, a Rockrat out in the belt, only wants to make money and a life for himself away from Earth. The aliens, he reasons, will be friendly; interstellar war can’t be economic, right?

All Markus Wilhelm wants to do is marry his girlfriend and live his life with her. His life is safe and cosy; he thinks that nothing can go wrong. How could anyone harm them at the heart of America?

They think the aliens are peaceful.

They’re dead wrong.

The Thin Blue Line–Snippet

7 Jul


“It doesn’t look very comfortable from up here, does it?”

Captain Kevin Vaughn – who was only a Captain by courtesy – turned and smiled at his sole crewmember. Cynthia was a bright young thing, a girl from a diehard Marine family who had insisted on becoming a spacer rather than a groundpounder like her father, brothers or cousins. He had to admire her resistance to peer pressure, even though he privately doubted that she would have survived the Slaughterhouse. It chewed up and broke an alarmingly high percentage of young recruits who made it through six months of Boot Camp.

“The Slaughterhouse isn’t meant to be comfortable,” he said, feeling his legs itch. It was psychometric, the shrinks had said; he’d lost his legs on an operation that had gone badly wrong and had to have them regrown in a tube. “It’s meant to push its victims to the limits.”

He sighed as he gazed down at the planet below. The Slaughterhouse was a confused patchwork of environments, each one possessing its own nasty surprises for unwary recruits, the result of a failed terraforming program. By now, keeping its environment as uncomfortable as possible required a full-time crew, who did everything from replace topsoil to introducing nasty critters from right across the Empire. The Slaughterhouse might break far too many of the recruits, but those who survived were the best damned soldiers in all of history.

“Everything is in working order,” Cynthia assured him. “How long do we have to remain here again?”

Kevin shrugged. The Commandant’s orders had been clear. Polly was to remain behind in orbit after the evacuation, watching and waiting, until something happened. Something had already happened, Kevin had thought rebelliously when he’d been given his orders, but he’d done as he was told. The empty planet below was living history, even if it was a part of history most of the Empire would prefer to forget. Watching it from high orbit was not a particularly unpleasant task.

“As long as we are ordered to do so,” he said, patiently. Cynthia was young. She’d learn patience soon enough. “Besides, it does give us a chance to run all those checks we never managed to do before the state of emergency was declared.”

He sighed, inwardly. The reports had been all too clear. Earth had been destroyed, her society ripped apart by social conflict, then smashed flat as pieces of debris fell from orbit and struck the surface with terrifying force. Kevin had no particular attachment to Earth – he’d been born on a planet hundreds of light years away – but it was still horrifying. Mother Earth might have been a poisoned, polluted mess, home to literally billions of civilians who did nothing but suck at the government’s teat, yet she was still the homeworld of humanity, the planet that had birthed a hundred thousand colony worlds. To know she was gone was terrifying.

Something has been removed from our lives, he thought. He’d heard any number of rumours before the Commandant had ordered the Slaughterhouse closed down, with all of the staff and recruits moved to a secure – and secret – location. And nothing will ever be the same.

“I could bring you a cup of coffee, if you’re busy wool-gathering,” Cynthia said. “Or would you like to find something else for me to do?”

“Coffee would be nice,” Kevin said. “And …”

He broke off as an alarm sounded. “Contact,” he snapped. “Man your station!”

Cynthia obeyed, scrambling into her chair and bringing the sensor console online. Polly was really nothing more than a handful of passive sensors and stealth systems, mounted on a squashed drive unit that had been pared down to the bare minimum. Kevin had no illusions about what would happen if they were detected, even by something as small as a gunboat or a corvette. He and his ship would be blown out of space before they knew they were under attack.

“I have five contacts, all coming out of cloak,” Cynthia snapped. “They must have realised there’s no one here to greet them.”

Kevin nodded, unsurprised. The Slaughterhouse was barely defended, compared to Earth or Terra Nova. No one in their right mind would consider attacking the Slaughterhouse when the reputation of the Marine Corps reached right across the galaxy. But Earth was gone and nothing would ever be quite the same. Who knew what was about to happen now?

“That wouldn’t have been hard,” Kevin said. They weren’t in the best position for optimal observation, but they were close enough to separate individual targets. It helped that the newcomers weren’t even trying to hide. “Give me a complete breakdown, if you can.”

“Three destroyers,” Cynthia said. “All Falcone-class, I think, but one of them has been heavily modified. The other two are light cruisers, probably Peacock-class. They appear to be standard specification, sir.”

“From a self-defence force, then,” Kevin said. That proved nothing. A number of star systems possessed semi-independent self-defence forces. The Grand Senate had regularly considered bills to disarm them, only to run into the threat of outright rebellion. “There aren’t any Peacocks left in the Imperial Navy.”

“Ship-spotter,” Cynthia accused. On the display, the small flotilla moved into orbit, scanning aggressively. “What are they doing here?”

“Good question,” Kevin said. “I have a feeling we’re not going to like the answer.”

The unknowns, whoever they were, were thorough. It was nearly forty minutes of constant scanning before they decided, apparently, that the planet was abandoned. Kevin wouldn’t have taken that for granted, not with the Slaughterhouse; he’d seen entire army divisions carefully camouflaged against orbital observation. There were no shortage of places where the Marines could have hidden their personnel, if they’d remained on the planet. Planets were big, after all. Spacers had a nasty habit of forgetting just how difficult it could be to move from one place to another.

Particularly if there’s an enemy force trying to stop you, Kevin thought, with grim amusement. It can take days to move from one system to another, but it can take weeks to move a hundred kilometres if the enemy is willing to do whatever it takes to slow you down.

Cynthia tapped his shoulder. “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin said, shortly. “I …”

An alarm sounded. “Missile separation,” Cynthia said, swinging her chair back to her console. “Multiple missile separations … sir, they’re firing on the planet!”

Kevin swore. The Slaughterhouse was living history. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Marines had emerged from the Slaughterhouse to fight for the Empire. The structures on the surface contained histories and relics the rest of the Empire, even the military, had chosen to forget. And it was part of a tradition he’d embraced with all his heart, long ago. To be forced to watch it die …

“Airburst detonations,” Cynthia said. “Sir … I don’t understand.”

“Radioactive poison,” Kevin said. Planet-killing weapons were forbidden, full stop. Bombarding a planet was one thing, but actively rendering it uninhabitable … the entire galaxy would rise up in horror. “I …”

He gritted his teeth in bitter frustration as lethal radiation spread through the planet’s atmosphere. Within days, there would be nothing left alive on the surface, unless it was very well protected. Even combat suits would be hard-pressed to shield their users against such levels of radiation. It would be years before radiation levels dropped to the point that anything could be recovered from the surface, then it would need intensive decontamination before it could be touched safely. He sought, frantically, for options, but found nothing.

There was nothing he could do but watch, helplessly, as the Slaughterhouse died.

Chapter One

The law, as the old saying goes, is the true embodiment of society. One can tell a great deal about a society by what it chooses to forbid and what it chooses to permit – and, perhaps more importantly, how it handles crimes.

Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

Earth was gone.

Marshall (Detective Inspector) Glen Cheal shook his head bitterly as the unmarked van made its way through Terra Nova’s darkened streets. The sun was setting in the sky, the remaining shoppers hurrying home for fear of being caught outside after curfew. Everywhere he looked he could see the signs of decay and despair; closed shops, abandoned vehicles and armed guards everywhere. It wouldn’t be long, he thought as they drove past a soup kitchen, before Terra Nova followed Earth into the fire.

He caught sight of his own reflection in the wing mirror and shivered. His brown hair was turning grey, his skin leathered and lined after too many stressful years as an Imperial Marshal. It was impossible to escape the feeling that he was old, old and tired. After Hazel had died, after his unborn daughter had died with her, part of him had just wanted to give up on life. Or maybe it was just a reflection of the lost Earth. What was humanity without its homeworld?

“Sandy’s been volunteering at her local kitchen,” Marshall (Detective) Isabel Freeman said, softly. “She says it’s getting harder to find anything, even processed algae.”

Glen nodded, unsurprised. The soup kitchens were the only places still feeding vast numbers of people who had been rendered suddenly destitute by the economic crash, when they’d discovered that all the money they’d invested in the imperial banking system had suddenly evaporated. But with funds drying up everywhere, it was getting harder to ship food from the farms and growth facilities into the cities. It would definitely not be long before the first food riots started, even without the Nihilists pouring fuel on the flames.

“Tell her to stay indoors in future,” Glen said. He rather envied Isabel her skill at managing her work along with a personal life, but right now it just gave her hostages to fortune. His daughter would have been fifteen two days ago, if she had lived. “The shit is heading towards the fan.”

He rubbed his eyes as they passed a school, now shuttered and dark. In his early years as a Marshal, he’d been called to deal with one riot or another on school grounds when the permissiveness of Imperial society finally led to its logical conclusion. Now, the children were either on the streets or cowering at home, mesmerised by the thought of the onrushing tidal wave of destruction. Earth was gone. There were no longer any certainties in the universe.

Isabel nodded. She was tough, Glen had to admit, certainly tougher than she looked. He’d been astonished when she’d been presented to him as a new graduate, one of the last before the Marshal Academy had been closed for the duration of the emergency. At the time, he’d looked her up and down and concluded she’d slept with one or more of the examiners. Now, he knew better. Isabel was tough enough to survive anything. And warm enough to join a group marriage and become a part of something greater than herself.

Something else greater than herself, Glen thought, tiredly. It was late; he would have preferred to go back to his apartment and sleep until his next shift was about to begin. But the tip-off had been urgent, urgent enough for him to forget the idea of going home and arrange for a raid without waiting for clearance. The Nihilists, God damn their black little souls, had a nasty habit of moving around at short notice before popping up to cause chaos.

The handful of people on the streets faded away completely as they drove into the tangled network of warehouses surrounding the nearest spaceport. Most of the warehouses were completely empty, he knew from the reports. Anyone with access to a starship had boarded it and set out for somewhere safer, somewhere isolated from the coming storm. He didn’t blame them, any more than he blamed the endless lines of civilians waiting to book starship tickets, or even taking short hops to asteroid settlements. Terra Nova, Earth’s oldest colony world, was less densely populated than Earth – than Earth had been, he reminded himself sharply – but it couldn’t support itself indefinitely. Law and order were teetering on the brink of falling into absolute chaos.

“I hope your informant was right, Glen,” Isabel said quietly, as they reached the RV point and parked the van. “The boss isn’t going to be very happy if this is a fuck-up.”

“There’s no point in taking chances,” Glen said. The tip-off had been too good to ignore – and besides, part of him would be grateful if he was suspended or fired. He could have left the star system with a clear conscience. “And besides, if we’d waited for approval from our superiors, someone might have tipped off the bastards.”

He gritted his teeth as he checked his pistol, then carefully stashed it beneath his trenchcoat and opened the door. It was an open secret that criminal gangs had made connections to senior officers within the Civil Guard, paying them for everything from advance warnings of any raids to military-grade supplies. And the criminals often had their own links with the Nihilists. The terrorists wouldn’t give a damn about crime, regarding it as yet another manifestation of the hopelessness of existence, but they’d be happy to trade with the crime lords. If someone had advance notice of an attack, they could use it to hide something while the law enforcement forces were distracted.

Outside, the air smelt faintly of oil and burning hydrocarbons. Glen glanced around, spotted the other vehicle some distance from the target warehouse, then made a hand signal inviting Isabel to join him outside the van. Surprisingly, the Civil Guardsmen had actually managed to be discrete when they moved their SWAT team into position. Normally, there was nothing so conspicuous as a Civil Guard force trying to hide. Glen smiled to himself, then led the way to the other vehicle. Inside, it was a mobile command and control centre.

“Marshal Cheal,” a tough-looking man said. “I’m Major Daniel Dempsey, local CO.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Glen said. “Status report?”

He allowed himself a moment of hope. Dempsey looked surprisingly competent for a Civil Guard officer and, more reassuringly, he was wearing nothing more than a basic uniform. The only trace of vanity was a hint that the uniform was tight enough to show off his muscles. Compared to the lines of fruit salad many officers wore, Glen was quite prepared to excuse it.

“Stealth drones reveal the existence of a low-power scrambler field within the warehouse,” Dempsey said, tapping the console. “Passive scans have turned up nothing. Marshal, but the mere presence of a scrambler field is justifiable cause for a raid.”

Glen nodded, shortly. A scrambler field would make it impossible to slip nanotech bugs inside the warehouse – and, unsurprisingly, civilian ownership was thoroughly illegal. The citizens of the Empire had nothing to fear as long as the Empire was allowed to spy on them at will, Glen had been told. But he’d also been a Marshal long enough to know just how easy it was to take something innocent, something that certainly shouldn’t be a criminal offense, and use it as evidence to get someone condemned.

And merely using the field suggests they have something to hide, he thought. But are they really terrorists … or just smugglers trying to get their goods off-planet?

“I will be sending in two teams,” Dempsey said. “And I will assume tactical command.”

“I want prisoners,” Glen said. “Tell your men to stun without hesitation, Major. The Nihilists are rarely taken alive.”

“And one of them might trigger a bomb,” Dempsey agreed. He picked up a helmet, then placed it on his head. “I would prefer it if you two remained here while we carried out the operation …”

Glen made a face. The Civil Guardsmen had made a good showing so far, but the real test would begin when the raid started. He wanted to be on the spot, yet he knew he hadn’t trained beside the Civil Guardsmen. It was quite possible he’d be shot by accident if he inserted himself into the scene before the bullets stopped flying. The Civil Guardsmen were low on enthusiasm and even lower on training.

“Very well,” he said. He took one of the chairs and began studying the views from microscopic cameras inserted around the warehouse. If everything had gone according to plan, the Nihilists had no idea a SWAT team had surrounded them and taken up positions to launch a raid. “Good luck.”

Isabel elbowed him as soon as Dempsey had made his way out of the command vehicle. “You don’t want to take command for yourself?”

“He’s the guy on the spot,” Glen said. In theory, Imperial Marshals had supreme authority to take the lead on any investigation, if they felt like it. But, in practice, it was normally better to let the locals handle it unless there was strong evidence the locals were likely to screw up, deliberately or otherwise. “And his men know him.”

He settled back in his chair and forced himself to watch as the display updated, rapidly. The team had done a good job of surveying their environment, he noted, as well as obtaining the warehouse’s plans from the rental authority. There was only one way into the warehouse, a large pair of double doors on the north side of the building. But, as the Nihilists would almost certainly have the entrance rigged to blow if the wrong people came through, Major Dempsey intended to assault from the rear and blow his way through the walls. Glen rather doubted there was any better options, given the short time they had to mount the raid. God alone knew when the Nihilists would try to move to another location.

And we could try to grab them when they moved, he thought. But that would be too risky.

“They’re moving,” Isabel said. “Team One is assaulting the wall; Team Two is moving to seal the doors.”

Glen took a breath as explosive charges blew holes in the walls. Moments later, armoured troopers ran forward, spraying stun bursts ahead of them. It ran the risk of stunning their own people, Glen knew, but it was the quickest way to clear the building. The prisoners would be moved to the cells, where they could be searched and then woken safely. They would have no opportunity to present a threat to their enemies.

He swore as he heard the sound of gunfire echoing out from the warehouse. Caught by surprise or not, the Nihilists had clearly been prepared – and ready to fight back. He wondered, absently, if someone had tipped them off despite the speed the raid had been organised, then decided it wasn’t likely. The Nihilists were mad, but they weren’t stupid. If they’d expected the raid, they would have rigged the warehouse to blow or cleared out before the shit hit the fan. They had to know that not everyone was as fanatically committed to destroying everything, purely for the sake of destruction, as their leadership.

“Two men down,” Isabel said. “One more injured, but still fighting.”

Glen ground his teeth, helplessly. He hated the waiting, hated having to watch helplessly as other men fought and died. If he’d had a choice, he would have taken a weapon himself and gone into the building, rather than watch the Guardsmen die. But all he could do was wait …

The sound of shooting grew louder. Pushing his thoughts aside, Glen reached for his terminal and began to type out an emergency update. The shooting would attract attention, even now. No one in their right mind wanted to run the risk of one group of Civil Guardsmen turning up to engage another group of Civil Guardsmen. Besides, he had to explain himself to his superiors when they demanded answers. He’d lost quite a bit the moment they opened fire.

“Take the com, tell them to send reinforcements, forensic teams and ambulances,” Glen ordered, as the shooting finally came to an end. One way or another, he was definitely committed now. He would have to pray that the raid had been a success or that his boss was feeling merciful. “I’ll be out there on the spot.”

He jumped out of the command vehicle and strode towards the warehouse, stripping off his trenchcoat to reveal a glowing yellow jacket. No one liked them, particularly the Marshals who had seen military service before making the jump to law enforcement, because they attracted attention, but the risk of being shot by one of his own snipers was far too high without some clear means of identification. He paused long enough to allow the snipers to eyeball him, then walked towards the hole in the wall. Dempsey met him as he reached the gap into the warehouse.

“It’s a mess, sir,” Dempsey said. “Four of my men are dead, two more badly injured.”

Glen made a face as the Civil Guardsmen carried their dead comrades out of the building and laid them, as respectfully as possible, on the roadside. The two wounded were escorted out next, their wounds already being tended by their fellows. In the distance, Glen could hear the sound of sirens as the emergency services converged on the warehouse. He sighed, then followed Dempsey into the building. Inside, it was definitely a mess.

There were hundreds of shipping pallets everywhere, some already broken open and spilling their contents on the ground. One of them was crammed with rifles, a knock-off of a design that was older than the Empire itself, another held SAM missile launchers, although there didn’t seem to be any missiles. That was odd, Glen noted, as he walked deeper into the building. Normally, the missile launchers were single-use fire and forget weapons. But their mere presence boded ill for the future.

“There are over a hundred crates in the warehouse,” Dempsey said, as several dead bodies were carried past them and out into the open air. “If they’re all crammed with weapons …”

“We might have had a serious problem,” Glen finished. Terra Nova was, in theory, a gun-free zone. In practice, the planet was awash with illegal weapons, mostly bought or stolen from the Civil Guard. But the stockpile before him was enough for a major war and it had all been in the hands of the Nihilists. What had they intended to do with it? “Where did they get them from?”

“This is a transhipment warehouse,” Dempsey said, dryly. “Someone must have shipped the weapons in from out-system, then smuggled them past the security guards.”

Glen shook his head in disbelief. Every year, more and more security precautions were added to sweep everything and everyone heading down to the surface. Every year, more and more visitors were irritated or outraged by body-scans and even close-contact searches. Every year, the number of tourists visiting Terra Nova declined still further, damaging the planet’s economy … and yet, the Nihilists were able to smuggle hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dangerous weapons though security without setting off any alarms.

But we caught them, he told himself. There was no way his boss could refuse to say the raid wasn’t justified, not now. We caught the bastards before they could start distributing the weapons.

He turned to look at Dempsey. “How many did we take alive?”

“None, so far,” Dempsey said. He didn’t seem flustered by Glen’s accusing look. It was far from uncommon for terrorists who had killed policemen or Civil Guardsmen not to make it to the station after being taken into custody. “They all had suicide implants, sir. They died moments after they were stunned.”

“Make sure the place is secured, then have the forensic team go through every last inch of the building,” Glen ordered. “I want every one of them identified, I want to know just who let them through security and why …”

“If we have the manpower,” Dempsey cut him off. “Will your boss authorise such an effort?”

Glen swore. With the threat of food riots, nearly every law-enforcement official on the planet had been diverted to patrolling the cities. Even the backroom experts who made the service work had been forced to remember their basic training as they donned armour and set out to try to make the streets a little safer. It was a recipe for disaster, everyone knew, but there was no alternative. They just didn’t have the manpower to flood the streets with officers, let alone Civil Guardsmen.

His terminal bleeped, loudly. It was Isabel’s ringtone. “Excuse me,” he said, removing the terminal from his belt. “Glen here.”

“Glen, I just got called by the boss,” Isabel said. “She’s sending a team of experts over here, but she wants you to report back to the station at once. I think you’re in the shit.”

“Come back this evening … tomorrow morning and dig me out,” Glen said. He wasn’t surprised. The raid had been a great success, but he would still have to answer a great many hard questions. “And bring coffee.”

“Will do,” Isabel said. “What would you like me to write on your gravestone before I dig you up and pit you back to work?”

Glen laughed, tiredly. “Something witty,” he said. “Take over here; let me know if we took anyone captive. We need answers from them.”

He stepped back out of the warehouse and walked over towards the line of vehicles screeching to a halt. One of them would take him back to the station, probably far too quickly for his peace of mind. He needed coffee and a rest, not a lecture from the boss.

But an Imperial Marshal’s work was never done.

What Measure Is a Reserve?

3 Jul

The latest idea from the British Government for cutting military costs is to depend more on the Army Reserve. This is one of those ideas that sound good to beancounters, but works poorly (if at all) in the real world. Indeed, as a recent article from Breitbart-London suggests, more volunteers have gone to join the Jihad in Syria than have signed up for the Army Reserve. Leaving the accuracy of this article aside for the moment, let us take a look at the contrast between the regular military and the reserve.

The army has at least one thing in common with a regular full-time job. Soldiers are soldiers first and foremost. They spend their days on deployment, training and exercising, leave or assistance to the civil authorities (flood relief, for example.) This is not true of reservists. They are people who hold jobs outside the military, which they have to leave at short notice when called to the colours. This tends to cause problems for their families and their employers. AND for the military.

A large business can probably cover for the sudden absence of one or two people. However, it would be a headache for managers, who would either have to make do without the reservist (for the duration of his deployment) or hire someone to fill the gap. To the best of my knowledge, it is illegal to fire someone for being a reservist; however, the prospect of someone being unable to commit to a full-time job will make managers unwilling to hire them. The smaller the business, the less room they will have to compensate for the loss of one of their workers. In short, being a member of the Army Reserve is likely to cut down one’s job prospects.

This problem has already appeared in the United States. National Guardsmen have often been forced to decide between the National Guard, which has gone on deployment alongside the regulars, or their places of employment. What price is patriotism when their families need money to live?

Why exactly wasn’t this taken into account when the government was drawing up its plans?

This isn’t the only problem. Modern war isn’t quite as simple as handing out the weapons, then pointing aggressive young men in the general direction of the enemy. Pre-deployment training eats up a considerable amount of time prior to any deployment. So reservists must be trained, and trained again, which will take them away from their jobs even if they aren’t sent out of the country.

And then we have another issue. Reservists will have families. Now, military families have to live with the fear that, one day, their loved ones will come back in a box, or hopelessly crippled. How much worse will it be, I ask you, if the family had several years of no military service at all, then lost a husband or father to a sudden shooting war?

Or what about pensions? What sort of support will be offered to the families of dead reservists? What about insurance? I’d be surprised if soldiers or reservists found it easy to get life insurance.

There are some advantages to maintaining a sizable Army Reserve. In the event of flooding, a major terrorist attack or mass civil unrest, it would be useful to be able to strengthen our deployable forces at high speed. However, the reserve cannot replace the regulars, which the government seems to believe possible.

Part of the problem, I think, is the perception that nothing is sacred any longer. Imagine yourself a young man, someone tough enough to consider a career in the British Army. You sign up, pass the qualification tests, go to Catterick and then pass the test to become part of the Parachute Regiment. Maybe you have ambitions to join the SAS after a tour or two of duty with the Paras. You put in all that effort … and then you get made redundant by the latest round of idiotic cuts. Why bother making the effort at all?

The bottom line is this. There is no way the Army Reserve can match the capabilities of regular soldiers. Trying to use the Reserve in the way the government has planned will be disastrous. It will, in the long run, cost us far more than maintaining a reasonably-sized regular army will cost us. And we would still be able to meet our commitments.

Right now, that is questionable.

We are at war. There are enemies out there. And our leaders are intent on disarming us.

<rolls eyes>

Norse Fire: The Nazi Civil War of 1991

2 Jul

Hopefully, a loose outline for a book …

Norse Fire: The Nazi Civil War of 1991


With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the Nazi Regime reached its zenith in 1960 and started going downhill shortly afterwards. Nazi Germany dominated Europe, with the exception of Britain, and was ringed by a series of client states that provided valuable resources as well as a buffer zone between the Reich and its enemies. The ‘racial purification’ campaigns had slaughtered large numbers of undesirables, Slavs were reduced to slaves in what had once been Russia and the Nazi Party’s dominance seemed unbeatable.

However, the Reich faced several major problems, all of which were beyond its ability to solve. The first was the persistent cold war with the Atlantic Alliance, dominated by America and Britain, which was a steady drain on the Reich’s resources. The second was growing resistance to Nazi Rule in the client states, forcing the Germans to support their puppet regimes with troops and economic support they could hardly afford to spare. The third was the steady pressure of the South African War, which had turned into a bloody slaughter that claimed the lives of thousands of German soldiers per year. The fourth, perhaps the most significant, was a constant economic decline that was steadily weakening the Reich.

In 1960, German technology had been the best in the world. However, by 1980, the United States had moved ahead, taking advantage of the ‘brain drain’ from Germany to ensure that the United States developed an insurmountable advantage in weapons and applied science. This was caused, at least in part, by a command economy that managed to be less efficient than the old Soviet Union, a problem caused by the division of German economic facilities among the various branches of the state. Worse, bright young Germans tended to flee to America when they had the chance, forcing the SS to hold families hostage. (And females were not expected to be anything other than mothers, daughters and wives, thus removing another source of brainpower from the equation.)

The results were disastrous. By 1985, the Reich was importing vast amounts of American computer technology (which led to unrest) – and facing a disastrous military situation. The United States had deployed a missile shield that, they claimed, could stop 90% of warheads aimed at the United States. Even without the threat of a global holocaust, the United States was simply deploying much better weapons.

These problems were made worse by a growing split in the German ranks. ‘West’ German were more ‘liberal’ than their rulers preferred, often embracing American ideals and goods smuggled in over the border. They served as the core of protest movements in the Reich itself. ‘East’ Germans (born in Occupied Poland and Russia) were far more hawkish. Living in settlements that were effectively armed camps, they had no love at all for the Americans to anything else that smacked of weakness. Their living conditions were regimented; they rarely lived without any form of military service. Indeed, while the SS was hated and feared by the West Germans, the East Germans regarded the SS as heroes. The attempts to institute the Church of the Aryan Man were most successful in Occupied Russia.

The only thing that could have saved the Reich were economic and political reforms. However, the Reich could not afford to make such reforms, as there were too many interests tied up in maintaining the status quo. Put simply, the Reich was governed by a council – the Reich Council – composed of senior officials from the military, SS, economy and party leadership. There was no scope for elections – or for anything other than officials who fought for their own scraps rather than considering the good of the Reich as a whole.

And when the Reich was openly challenged by its own people, the government proved largely incapable of handling it.

The First Rumblings

The Nazis had never worried very much about protests in their client states. Their general rule was to crack down on protesters with maximum force, the iron fist in the iron glove. However, they were largely unprepared for protests within Germany itself and, when they started to appear, responded poorly.

Protests (and non-Nazi political parties) had long since been banned. However, this didn’t stop people grumbling, then realising that other people were grumbling. The first protests came from students who railed against the new regulations for travel outside the Reich, then were joined by mothers and wives protesting the South African War and, most worryingly of all from the Reich’s point of view, wildcat strikes among highly-paid German workers. The Reich could and did handle a handful of subversives (indeed, the SS maintained a small army of spies to watch public gatherings) but it had problems trying to decide how to deal with a mass movement. The first attempts at repression scared some, but galvanised others. Maybe a number of leaders had been arrested, but others appeared soon enough.

This was actually boosted by the spread of American-designed personal computers. The Reich hated the machines, unsurprisingly, as they were actually useful for sending illicit messages from one group of dissents to another. Indeed, the students were often far more adept at using them than the SS. By 1990, the students and other dissenters had developed a network for sharing messages underground, while the SS could barely keep up, let alone crack down on the leadership. (Matters were not helped by the inherent sexism of the Nazi Regime. They didn’t realise that the closest thing the movement had to a leader was a young female student.)

In 1991, the first mass protest march took place in Berlin. The SS was caught completely by surprise as hundreds of thousands of people came out on the streets, demanding an end to the South African War and political reform. A whole list of demands, ranging from practical to absurd, were distributed around the city, while the SS was still trying to decide what to do. In the end, the protesters dispersed, leaving the entire city on edge. They’d made their point.

The Spark

The Reich Council was shocked to discover that so much organisation had taken place right under their nose. The meeting they’d called immediately after the protesters had dispersed was, unsurprisingly, more than a little heated. The council divided between doves, who privately agreed that the South African War had been a mistake, and hawks who wanted to crack down on the protesters with maximum force. This provoked a whole series of arguments; if the Reich didn’t crack down, it would look weak … but if it did crack down, the economic repercussions could be disastrous. Eventually, however, the hawks won the day and started making plans for the next protest march.

This took place two weeks later. This time, the SS was ready. When the protesters arrived, the SS moved forward to intercept them, guns at the ready. However, they had underestimated the degree of support the protesters had among elements in both the German Army and the Berlin Police Force (some of whom had friends and family in the march.) When the SS opened fire, the army and police opened fire on them. A confused multi-sided street battle broke out, which eventually resulted in the SS being driven from the streets and the protesters storming the Reich Council building.

Realising they were committed, the mutinous units talked to other units across Germany and convinced many of them to switch sides. As the Reich Council fled in disarray, the protesters seized their buildings and started gleefully trying to organise a new government. However, it was not going to be smooth sailing. Fighting right across West Germany – and the client states – had left the military in disarray. In the meantime, the SS had largely secured East Germany and was girding itself for war.

The Provisional Government

The Provisional Government was very much a mixed bag. None of the factions had given serious thought to what would happen when they took over, as they had anticipated a long campaign before the Reich Council finally surrendered. Now, the council consisted of protest leaders, several senior military officers and even a pair of high-ranking economic officials who were trying to make the best they could of a bad situation. The Provisional Government was not particularly strong, nor did it have access to instruments of force.

However, it did have some advantages. First, it largely controlled most of the air force and navy, including the nuclear boats. Second, it was willing and able to pledge political independence to the client states in exchange for assistance with the upcoming civil war. Third, and finally, it was quite capable of developing ties with the Atlantic Alliance and asking for help. Given time, it was agreed that the Provisional Government would be a major force.

Organising the country for war, however, proved a daunting task. On one hand, almost every able-bodied German male had some form of military training. On the other, it was grimly acknowledged that the SS were fanatical and could call on deeper reserves of manpower than the Provisional Government. Indeed, the SS had more tanks at their disposal from Day One than the Provisional Government. (Much of the Army’s deployable force was either on the borders or in sheds.) Matters were not helped by a growing spirit of independence among the newly-drafted men. They weren’t so inclined to take orders from their seniors, despite the urgency of the situation.

The most important matter, however, was making approaches to Washington. This the Provisional Government did, requesting help as a matter of urgency. Washington was divided, as was London. Some elements wanted to help, if only to put the Reich to bed once and for all, others were worried about the prospect of a nuclear holocaust. The rump government still controlled the missile fields in Siberia, after all. In the end, it was decided to play a waiting game, but offer humanitarian supplies if necessary.

The Rump

The Reich Council (what remained of it) had fewer problems establishing its authority in the East. It was, after all, the most intensely loyal part of the Reich. However, it faced several problems of its own, starting with the urgent need to recover its position before the Provisional Government established itself. Defence lines were set up, large numbers of settlers were called to the colours and the state prepared itself for war.

There was no thought of compromise. None of the council believed that any compromise could be worked out that both sides would find acceptable. Some of them did propose a permanent split between West and East Germany, separating the two sides, which was considered as a potential fallback solution. However, no one had any illusions. A split in the Reich was the same as admitting defeat in the Cold War.

It was the Reich Council that took the initiative and launched the first strike against the Provisional Government. The SS moved forces into Germany, then attacked the former council building directly, hoping to kill the Provisional Government. After the first shock had worn off, the defenders counterattacked, beating the commandos away from the building and killing most of them. The war was about to begin.

Round One

The SS had always prided itself on having the most deployable forces in the Reich. That was not actually untrue. The Waffen-SS had always been intended as the Reich’s trouble-shooters (quite literally) and everything they used was designed for rapid deployment. Accordingly, once reinforced by drafted manpower from the East, they started advancing through Poland towards the rough border of the Provisional Government’s power.

This was not unexpected (the Americans had seen the preparations and passed on a warning) and the Provisional Government scrambled to put together a response. First, cruise missiles and then aircraft were used to harry the SS, taking out bridges and roads the SS needed for rapid deployment of their forces. Second, small teams of soldiers were armed with antitank weapons and told to delay the SS as much as possible. The tactics worked, slowing the SS badly, but as they kept pushing forward they retaliated with cruise missiles of their own.

The first major armoured clash took place on the border of Poland, with several army units confronting the SS directly. It was a brutal engagement, all the more so as neither side was interested in taking prisoners. (Rumours of SS atrocities against the civilian population had spread widely.) The SS was, at first, knocked back. However, close-air support aircraft came to the rescue, allowing them to regain their position and counterattack. By the time the glitch in coordination was fixed, the SS had managed to break through the regular army’s lines and press towards Berlin.

The Attack on Berlin

The Provisional Government was, understandably, distraught at the thought of actually being beaten. Some elements wanted to flee, others wanted to fight or come to terms with the rump government. The more clear-sighted leaders, however, realised that the rump was unlikely to show mercy to any of them. The only hope was to keep fighting and force the SS into an attack on Berlin itself. The city was rapidly evacuated of non-combatants, while the military prepared for a desperate stand.

Rational military thought would have encouraged the rump to lay siege to the city and then wait for the defenders to starve. The rump, however, was not rational. It was alarmingly aware that it was losing its best opportunity to win the war without having to fight to regain the Reich’s power in Western Europe. Accordingly, it ordered the SS to attack Berlin itself.

It became a nightmare. Days became weeks as the military tried to force its way into a city where every building was heavily defended, all the while growing slowly aware that large forces were gathering to liberate the city. Eventually, the Provisional Government’s forces, now ready for the fight, counterattacked and drove the SS away from the city. By then, it was a broken force. The fanatics might have tried to keep the others going, but the remainder were bitterly disillusioned by the fight.

Round Two

The defeat at Berlin sparked off a series of disputes among the rump government. Unsurprisingly, the disputes turned violent. Anyone who wasn’t inclined to fight to the finish was unceremoniously removed from the council and killed, leaving the fanatics in charge. However, their best efforts to hide the news of the defeat failed badly. The Provisional Government was gleefully broadcasting the news of their failure into Russia, allowing the settlers to see how badly their young man had been squandered. Worse, news of the defeat galvanised the local insurgents. Desertion, not a major problem, started to affect the rump as the settlers realised that their homesteads were in serious threat.

Once it had recovered from the near-defeat, the provisional government started organising an advance forward into Russia. It was a careful advance, rather than a blitzkrieg, but it faced relatively little opposition until it reached the Ukraine. There, they found themselves fighting a multi-sided insurgency against both German settlers and locals who could hardly tell the difference between one faction of Germans and the another.

This provoked many discussions among the provisional government. Should they arm the insurgents and help them attack the rump, knowing that their fellow Germans would be killed by the fighting, or should they wait, re-gather their forces and continue the war after winter had passed and spring had arisen? It didn’t seem like a bad idea, they thought; the victory at Berlin had allowed the provisional government to call on manpower from the former puppet states, while the navy gave them an advantage in raiding the enemy coastline.

The dissenters, however, worried about the long-term risks. A long war would be disastrous. It would be better to seek peace, perhaps splitting the nation in two, than continue the war, knowing that whoever came out ahead would be gravely weakened. Several attempts at peace probes were shot down by the rump, whose new leadership saw no future if it couldn’t return to absolute power. It seemed that there was no hope of a real victory – or of nothing, but stalemate.

The Coup

The Provisional Government had taken a number of prisoners during the Battle of Berlin. Some were fanatics, others were more inclined to question what they had been told after watching so many of their fellows dying in the battle. Several of them were told that the war would only grow worse, then released to make their way back to the East. One of them, in particular, had connections throughout the settler community and managed to convince others to listen to him. If the war continued, he said, the only winners would be the Russian insurgents.

After careful planning, the settlers launched a coup directed against the rump government, which overwhelmed the leadership. Confused, the military did nothing as the settlers took power, then opened talks with the provisional government. The gist of their agreements was that there would be a permanent split between East and West Germany; the provisional government agreed, reluctantly, not to supply the insurgents with weapons. The remaining SS fanatics were disarmed and allowed to join the settlers. The war was effectively over.


The Provisional Government formally accepted the loss of Germany’s client states in 1992, although economic ties would remain for years to come. Sorting out the mess the Nazis had made of the economy would take years; Germany would go through some very hard times before the economy started to recover. However, West Germany eventually become an economic – and largely democratic nation in its own right, which was more than could be said for East Germany. The East continued to fight brutal insurgencies up until 2010.

Bonnie King Charlie: An Alternate History Speculation

1 Jul

[I haven’t done one of these for a while. I hope you like it.]

Historians disagree, savagely, over Charles Edward Stuart’s chances of taking the British Throne in 1745. Militarily speaking, the odds were massively against him. The Hanoverian Government commanded vastly greater resources, still controlled most of the forts in Scotland, and most of the pro-Jacobite families in England had been thoroughly cowed by the failure of the earlier attempt at a rising. To add to these woes, the Highlanders who made up the bulk of the Jacobite army were reluctant to march too far into England and, in any case, had significant shortfalls of everything from heavy guns to ammunition. Worst of all, there was no real prospect of French intervention.

Charles had, as I see it, only two realistic hopes of pulling anything from the Rising, apart from a great many dead Highlanders. First, he could concentrate his efforts on securing Scotland, creating an independent kingdom next to England. If he successfully crushed the loyalists and secured the forts, England would be looking at a long campaign to regain control, while the French would see their chance to ship troops into Scotland to tip the balance against England. However, this strategy would run into a number of problems. King George was not particularly popular in the Highlands, but he had his followers and supporters in the lowlands (while not all the Highlanders were prepared to follow Charlie in any case.) And besides, the Jacobite shortage of heavy guns, as mentioned above, would make it very difficult for them to take the forts and thus control over the interior lines of communication.

The second option was to push as hard as he could at London and hope, basically, for King George to lose his nerve and flee. That might not have been as improbable as it seems; if Charles had looked the certain victor, it is quite possible that many of the greater families and other powerful personages would switch sides, trying to preserve what they could in the event of a Jacobite restoration. On the other hand, London was heavily defended and trying to attack the capital could have proven a bloody disaster. But it was, I feel, Charles’s best chance for actual victory.

So Charles attacks London and wins. King George flees. Parliament, under the pressure of Jacobite guns, proclaims Charles King of Britain. (This is actually quite awkward, technically; James II is still alive. On the other hand, James was a known Catholic and Charles showed his willingness to convert at a later date in OTL, so he might have made the conversion for expediency’s sake.) Charles seems to have achieved all he wanted.

Now what?

One of the problems with Charles, perhaps relating to his upbringing and treatment by the French, was that he was stubborn and as headstrong as a mule. His was a fundamentally autocratic personality. Given real power, what would he do with it? I rather doubt he would see the wisdom of compromise – he never did, unless he had no cards to play at all – and there would likely be a great many changes, score-settlings and suchlike in London. Parliament would soon come to regret, I think, that they had ever hailed him as King.

Furthermore, Charles would be torn between wanting to work with the French and hating them as thoroughly as any of his new subjects. The French had treated him poorly, after all; he might have reason to work with them, but he hated them. I suspect he would start planning to double-cross King Louis as soon as possible, given a chance. His fumbling on the continent would rival Mary Tudor for sheer incompetence, mixed with stupidity.

And then he would react badly to any hint that Parliament had power over him. His fondness for intrigue would come to life and he would start attempting to undermine parliamentarians who resisted them, or perhaps start clapping them in the tower. This would almost certainly provoke rebellion. Parliament had a huge measure of independence after the Restoration. Charles might find himself forced to rely on French troops or Highlanders to maintain order and control.

And who would he marry? Historically, Charles was no ladies man (he is supposed to have been a virgin until the Rising failed, then he had a series of affairs which all ended badly. I suspect he would have pressed for a royal marriage from the continent, which would almost certainly have meant a Catholic Princess. (No one else would fit his dignity, as he saw it.) It would only have made fears of popery stronger, although if he tried his wife in ATL like he did his OTL wife, she might get a great deal of public sympathy.

I cannot help, but feel that a Stuart Restoration would have ended badly. Charles was simply even more headstrong and unpleasant than his processor, Charles I. Even if he managed to avoid provoking a rebellion – it wasn’t that long since the Glorious Revolution – and the Hanoverians didn’t mount a Rising of their own, Britain would suffer badly under his rule. The greatest long-term victors might be the French, as Britain would be less intent on spreading into the New World. Or, perhaps, an America that grasped its independence earlier, from a far less kind Britain.

Charles was a romantic hero of myth. It’s probably best for us he stayed that way.