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Gordian Protocol Teaser MAJOR spoiler added

David's and Jacob Holo's newest alternate, cross history series.
Gordian Protocol Teaser MAJOR spoiler added
Post by runsforcelery   » Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:12 am

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And I guess if I'm going to give you the first chapter, I might as well give you the teaser, too! :lol:

_______________________________________________________________

A Man of Two Worlds

Doctor Benjamin Schröder was far from a man of action. In fact, he was a history teacher — Chairman of the Castle Rock University history department — and if his life wasn't perfect, it was close. Until, that is the discussion of his star student Elzbietá Abramowski's dissertation on Operation Yellow Brick, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.

The psychotic episode that turned his entire world upside down struck with absolutely no warning, and it was more terrifying than anything he should have been able to imagine, leaving him with a complete, incredibly detailed set of false, nightmare "memories." Not just of his own life, but of an entire, ghastly world in which Operation Yellow Brick had never happened. In which millions of helpless civilians had been systematically slaughtered in "extermination camps" that were horrific beyond belief. In which there was still a Soviet Union. In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded, the Korean Peninsula had been permanently divided, thousands of nuclear warheads had spread their deadly threat across the entire Earth, and the Middle East was a festering sore of bloodshed, fanaticism, and terrorism.

The knowledge that those false memories had come from somewhere inside his own psyche was terrible, but with the help of Commander Abramowski, a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot who’d been forced to deal with her own PTSD after crippling combat wounds invalided her out of service, he has put his life back together. With Elzbietá's support, he's learned to deal with the nightmares, to recognize that they are only nightmares that can't — and won't — be permitted to rule his life.

Until, that is, a lunatic named Raibert Kaminski knocks on his door one afternoon with an impossible and horrifying story about alternate realities, time travel, temporal knots, and more than a dozen doomed universes which must inevitably die if the temporal storm front rushing towards the distant future isn't stopped. He has to be lying, of course. Or completely insane. But what if he's not a madman after all? What if he's actually telling the truth?

That possibility is the most terrifying thing of all. Because if he is, the false memories aren't false after all, and that other world is just as real as the one Schröder has always known. And if that's true, Benjamin Schröder is about to become the greatest mass murderer in human history, because he has to choose. Whether he acts or refuses to act, Benjamin Schröder is the one man who will decide which universe lives and which dies, along with every star system, every galaxy — and every single human being — in it.

Including the woman he's discovered he loves more than life itself.
Last edited by runsforcelery on Mon Mar 04, 2019 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Dilandu   » Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:06 am

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Well, since there is Vladivostok, then the divergence point is no further than 1860, when it was founded.

Operation Yellow Brick, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


As far as I know, the "Yellow" war plans were reserved for China. Russia was labeled as "Green" pre-1904 (and after 1904 weren't in color-coded plans anymore).
In which there was still a Soviet Union.


So the divergence point is no further than 1920s.

to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


Well... good luck to them) Traversing along the length of Siberia, against the population that is generally as "eager" to greet the invaders as Texans may be... How fast the "Pacific Allies" government collapsed under popular uproar against cold-climate analogue of Vietnam War? :)

In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded


Then no further than 1927?
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by phillies   » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:19 pm

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Perhaps the author is more imaginative than "divergence point". Has the illustrious author #1 ever done anything taht might deceive a reader. No. We even survived Merlin's death in an early book of that other series.

Dilandu wrote:Well, since there is Vladivostok, then the divergence point is no further than 1860, when it was founded.

Operation Yellow Brick, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


As far as I know, the "Yellow" war plans were reserved for China. Russia was labeled as "Green" pre-1904 (and after 1904 weren't in color-coded plans anymore).
In which there was still a Soviet Union.


So the divergence point is no further than 1920s.

to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


Well... good luck to them) Traversing along the length of Siberia, against the population that is generally as "eager" to greet the invaders as Texans may be... How fast the "Pacific Allies" government collapsed under popular uproar against cold-climate analogue of Vietnam War? :)

In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded


Then no further than 1927?
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:18 pm

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phillies wrote:Perhaps the author is more imaginative than "divergence point". Has the illustrious author #1 ever done anything taht might deceive a reader. No. We even survived Merlin's death in an early book of that other series.

Merlin's death? I don't remember Merlin being "killed" in that other series. I do remember the "mortal" wound of Hector however, which was a clear (and successful) (after the fact) attempt to mislead us.
========================

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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by PeterZ   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:36 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
phillies wrote:Perhaps the author is more imaginative than "divergence point". Has the illustrious author #1 ever done anything taht might deceive a reader. No. We even survived Merlin's death in an early book of that other series.

Merlin's death? I don't remember Merlin being "killed" in that other series. I do remember the "mortal" wound of Hector however, which was a clear (and successful) (after the fact) attempt to mislead us.

I believe he misremembers the quote. Staynair mentioned he did not think Nimue was dead in the conversation that revealed the truth to Cayleb.
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by ncwolf   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:04 pm

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Dilandu wrote:Well, since there is Vladivostok, then the divergence point is no further than 1860, when it was founded.

Operation Yellow Brick, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


As far as I know, the "Yellow" war plans were reserved for China. Russia was labeled as "Green" pre-1904 (and after 1904 weren't in color-coded plans anymore).
In which there was still a Soviet Union.


So the divergence point is no further than 1920s.

to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.


Well... good luck to them) Traversing along the length of Siberia, against the population that is generally as "eager" to greet the invaders as Texans may be... How fast the "Pacific Allies" government collapsed under popular uproar against cold-climate analogue of Vietnam War? :)

In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded


Then no further than 1927?


1927?? Wouldn't that be 1949?? (Was the Long March in 1927?)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by ncwolf   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:07 pm

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And perhaps this teaser is to motivate us as to why someone would raid the Library of Alexandria three or four hundred years before its destruction? And why they would do it in such a bloody fashion---besides being arrogant, self-centered mass murderers?
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:54 pm

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ncwolf wrote:1927?? Wouldn't that be 1949?? (Was the Long March in 1927?)


Well, I took the first conflict between Communist and Nationalists in China (before that, they worked as allies); so no earlier than 1927, clearly.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:56 pm

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phillies wrote:Perhaps the author is more imaginative than "divergence point". Has the illustrious author #1 ever done anything taht might deceive a reader. No. We even survived Merlin's death in an early book of that other series.


The divergence points are the Alpha and Omega of alternate history fiction. They determine what could be, and what couldn't or at least very improbable. Basically, they allowed to made the internal logic of the timeline.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by ncwolf   » Tue Nov 27, 2018 4:00 pm

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Dilandu wrote:
ncwolf wrote:1927?? Wouldn't that be 1949?? (Was the Long March in 1927?)


Well, I took the first conflict between Communist and Nationalists in China (before that, they worked as allies); so no earlier than 1927, clearly.


Ah; just goes to show that you know history better than I do.
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