Worldwar
From Freepedia
Worldwar is a series of four alternate history science fiction novels by Harry Turtledove.
The premise of the series is an alien invasion of Earth in the middle of World War II. While the military invasion itself begins on or around May 30, 1942, it is implied that the aliens, who call themselves the Race, reached Earth orbit in December of 1941. Presumably, six months were spent making preparations for the attack.
Although the Race, a reptilian species, has the advantage of superior technology, their last information on humans was collected by a robotic probe during the 12th century. Their technology is only slightly ahead of what we have today: hydrogen based engines, holographic projectors, and cold sleep being among the technologies not in common use at the start of the 21st century. The "Lizards," as they are quickly dubbed by their human antagonists, are extremely surprised that mankind has progressed so far since their probe visited Earth. No species they've ever encountered has advanced so rapidly (they literally thought the toughest military force on the planet would still be Crusader knights mounted on horseback).
The narrative follows the intersecting fortunes of a large number of human and alien characters. Most notably the series depicts how the Axis and Allied powers must cooperate to fight the alien menace. A follow-up trilogy, Colonization, carries the story forward into a very different 1960s. The timeline ends with Homeward Bound.
The volumes are:
- Worldwar: In the Balance (1994)
- Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (1995)
- Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance (1996)
- Worldwar: Striking the Balance (1996)
Dramatis Personae
The following is a list of some major characters from the series.
Fleetlord Atvar: The commander of the Race's Conquest Fleet. He is apparently related to the Emperor and owes his position partly due to that fact. In the course of the series it is revealed that aptitude tests back on Home indicated Atvar would be either a proficient architect or military officer. He chose a military career believing it would be more exciting.
Colonel Heinreich Jaeger: A tank commander in the German Sixth Army advancing on Stalingrad when the alien invasion begins. Jaeger fought in the trenches of World War I as a teenager and saw firsthand the devastating effects of armored vehicles on infantry. After the Armisitice he stayed in the army, serving in the Reichswher of the Weimar Republic. When Hitler began rearming Germany in the 1930s, Jaeger requested reassignment to the Panzer Corps. If he was going to see combat in another war, he wanted to fight from a tank cuppola.
Ussmak: A driver for the crew of a landcruiser in the Conquest Fleet. At first, Ussmak and his crewmates revel at the ease with which they manage to destroy Soviet T-34s and German Panthers, the most advanced armored vehicles of the human armies. However, they soon grow disillusioned when the humans continue to resist the invasion despite their clear military inferiority. Ussmak eventually finds himself wondering if this is a fight worth waging.
Flight-Lieutenant George Bagnall: A flight engineer in the Royal Air Force serving aboard a Lancaster bomber. Bagnall is part of a 1,000 bomber flight returning from a run over Cologne in Germany when the invasion begins. The armada of bombers is under attack from German AA and fighters when the Race's jets descend upon the unsuspecting humans. The resulting battle leaves several German and British planes destroyed while no significant damage is inflicted upon the Race.
Flight Leader Teerts: A killercraft pilot from the Conquest Fleet. His is among the jet fighter's that rapidly neutralize human air power in the opening days of the invasion. By the end of the first few weeks, the Race achieves air supremacy over most of the planet, forcing human pilots to engage in small limited attacks upon isolated targets or risk nearly certain death.
Lieutenant Ludmilla Gorbunova: One of many female pilots in the Soviet Union's Red Air Force. Stationed at an airfield near Kharkov in the Ukraine when the invasion begins, Ludmilla witnesses the destruction of most human aircraft, both Soviet and German, at the hands of the alien invaders. Since she flies a small wooden biplane with a low ceiling, qualities that render it practically invisible to radar, she is one of the few pilots to survive the initial alien attack.
Colonel Leslie Groves: Head of America's atomic bomb development. His first task is to get a batch of captured alien Uranium from Boston, Massachusetts to Denver, Colorado where the "metallurgical laboratory" developing the atom bomb has been relocated. He is very well aware of the fact that the Soviet Union and Germany are also working fervently to develop the first human atomic weapons and he is eager to win the race.
Vyacheslav Molotov: Head of the Soviet Union's Foreign Ministry, Molotov is given the unenviable task of negotiating with Fleetlord Atvar. Possessing an icy and taciturn demeanor, he proves adept at reading the intentions of his adversaries, both human and alien. The only time Molotov reveals any sign of emotion is around Stalin, who illicits a certain amount of fear in him. Along with Germany's Joachim von Ribbentrop and America's Cordell Hull, Molotov is among the first humans to orbit the Earth.
Sam Yeager: A minor league ball player with the Decatur Commodores when the invasion takes place. Like many young men, he tried to enlist in the Army in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941. However, he was rejected due to the fact that he is forced to wear a full plate of dentures after losing his teeth during the Polio epedemic of 1918. His train is strafed south of Dixon, Illinois during the opening hours of the invasion. Not long afterward, he is drafted by a desperate US Army.
Jens Larssen: A physicist at the University of Chicago. When the Race begins its attack on Earth, they detonate several atomic bombs just above the Earth's atmosphere hoping to disrupt human electronics with the resulting electromagentic radiation. This attempt at subterfuge fails since electronics of the 1940s use vacuum tubes rather than integrated circuits, making the effect of EM radiation minimal. However, Larssen is among the handful of human scientists to realize that the attack proves nuclear fission is feasible. This is important since Larssen is working alongside several other scientists to develop an atom bomb.
David Goldfarb: A radar operator in the Royal Air Force. When the Race carries out air reconaissance in the months prior to their attack, Goldfarb and his fellow radar specialists are confused by the readings they're recording. No one believes aircraft can fly as fast or as high as the readings indicate.
Moishe Russie: A doctor in Poland when the Germans invaded in 1939. Since he is Jewish, Moishe and his family are forced by the German authorities to live in the Warsaw ghetto. It is revealed later that plans were underway to ship most of the Jews in the ghetto to a place called Auschwitz. When the alien invasion begins, Moishe advises his fellow Jews to greet the Race as liberators since one of their bombs inadvertenly blows a hole in the ghetto wall. The Jews of Poland are cruelly disillusioned as to the nature of their "liberators."
Worldwar: In the Balance
After arriving in the Earth's solar system, the Conquest Fleet's essential personnel are awakened from cold sleep after a twenty year journey originating from Tau Ceti II. Fleetlord Atvar is busy making final prepararions for the invasion of Earth, expecting a rapid victory over the primitive beings that populate the planet. He is interrupted by a communications officer who reports that radio emissions are emanating from Earth. Atvar refuses to believe the report since the most recent intelligence, gathered from a probe that visited Earth in the 12th century, indicates that the inhabitants are a pre-industrial species.
The Conquest Fleet reaches Earth orbit in December of 1941 and begins surveying the planet. They are shocked to find that in the course of only 800 years the inhabitants have moved from a primitive agricultural society to an industrial civilization. The Race's technology has hardly changed in the space of more than 50,000 years and other known intelligent species are similarly slow to evolve.
After six months of reconaissance and intelligence gathering, in May of 1942 Atvar consults with the Shiplords of the Conquest Fleet. The troops have been awakened from cold sleep and are prepared to commence with military operations. However, it is within Atvar's power to cancel the invasion. Unwilling to call off the attack and face the Emperor back on Home, Atvar orders the assault to begin. Shortly thereafter the Race detonates several atom bombs above the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to disrupt human communications. The attack begins.
On the night of May 30, only hours after detonating the atomics, the Race's forces attack human aircraft and ground vehicles in and around designated landing zones. Once the sites are secured, troop ships begin landing and disgorging ground forces. The Race simultaneously establishes bases on every continent except Antarctica.
South America and Africa are overrun almost immediately. Landing bases in Florida, Illinois, Idaho, and New York cause widespread panic and chaos in the United States. The Race's forces establish bases in Poland, cutting Germany off from the bulk of its forces in the Soviet Union and resulting in a massive German withdrawal westward. England's air forces are battered from alien bases in Spain and France. The Soviet Union must deal with enemy strongholds in the Ukraine, Outer Mongolia, and Transiberia. Everywhere, humankind falls back in the face of a seemingly unstoppable nemesis.
While hostilities between the Axis and Allied powers end almost immediately, this the result of military expediency rather than a sign of genuine cooperation. With the Race's forces battering the human armies into submission, no resources can be expended on human rivals. The unsettling reality of the new balance of power is emphasized by the fact that, in the early days of the fighting, only Germany is able to battle the aliens with any measure of success. Since Germany has been at war longer than the other major powers and because its economy has been specifically geared toward war, this is only natural. But Americans are nauseated by the idea of fighting on the same side as Hitler while the Soviets aren't quite so sure that the Germans can be trusted even in the face of an alien invasion.
After the initial assault, the Race's troops come to a virtual stand still. It is not so much human resistance that keeps them from advancing as much as their tendency to deliberate their options before acting. Mankind takes advantage of the respite provided to wage localized counterattacks, nearly all of which fail. In the process they find that the Race lacks tactical combat initiative and can be easily pulled into traps. However, their advanced technology makes it difficult to take advantage of this weakness.
In an attempt to reduce human resistance, Atvar orders the use of atomic weapons on Washington DC and Berlin, hoping that this will persuade the Americans and the Germans to surrender. Instead, both nations are simply compelled to fight harder and to hasten research into production of their own atomic weapons.
Hitler takes advantage of the brief lull in the figthing to order an artillery unit in the Ukraine to attack an alien base. The German battery manages to destroy one of the Race's ships, the one which carries the bulk of the Conquest Fleets atomic stockpile. The resulting explosion sends chunks of Uranium flying across several acres. Soviet partisans take notice of the care with which the Race goes about collecting the strange metal.
Elsewhere in the Ukraine, Major Heinreich Jaeger manages to destroy one of the Race's landcruisers, but at the cost of his entire panzer company. Narrowly escaping from the battle he is found by Lieutenant Gorbunova who flies him back to the airfield where she is stationed. From there, Jaeger is sent to Moscow where he spends several weeks as a guest of the Soviet government-not an official prisoner of war nor an ally. Finally, he is asked to take part in a joint German-Soviet operation in the Ukraine aimed at recovering some of the Uranium.
The ad hoc band of Soviet partisans and displaced German soldiers charged with the assignment manages to hijack a shipment of Uranium. In accordance with negotiated arrangements, they divide the load in half and go their separate ways. Jaeger is given a horse and is forced to ride across the Ukrainian steppe and through enemy occupied Poland to reach Germany with the precious metal. Along the way, he is ambushed by Jewish partisans. Though they are nominally allies of the Race, they recognize the threat the aliens pose to mankind. They take half the Uranium in Jaeger's possession and let him return to Germany. The Jewish partisans send their comandeered Uranium to England where it is subsequently shipped to the United States.
The first novel ends as the winter of 1942-43 begins. Realizing that it will be more difficult for the cold-blooded Lizards to fight effectively during winter, on first day that it starts snowing the United States army under George S. Patton launch a counter-attack against the Race forces advancing towards Chicago. They are largely aided by the deployment of new infantry-based anti-vehicle weapons (bazookas), an asymmetric warfare tactic that catches the Race competely off guard. With any luck, these new tactics of winter offensive and asymetric warfare will Tip the Balance of the war in favor of the humans.
Meanwhile, Fleetlord Atvar and the Fleet officers are debating the progress of the war. They are disturbed by the realization that they are going to start running out of advanced armaments soon: the Race only brought a finite supply of guided missiles, etc., and supplies are starting to be stretched thin because they have no way of producing more (although a bullet is a bullet, so basic ammunition for troops and shells for landcruisers can be produced in captured factories). However, although the Race are slow learners they've finally come to the realization that petroleum is a vital fuel to the humans, and that by targeting hard to conceal petroleum refineries they could easily bring a grinding halt to the human infrastructure. This new plan may well Tip the Ballance of the war in favor of the Race...
