Disappointed in 1632

[Polish Eagle]

The Protestants were at this point well into developing "freedom of religion" (in the sense of "freedom to set up our own hegemonic authoritarian religious community", anyway), too. They're assholes in their own ways, but compare to the Literal Spanish Inquisition...

I think it's also worth noting who they're being assholes to. The majority of a random West Virginian mining town are more likely to be Protestants than Catholics (EDIT: their numerical advantage is such that one of the short stories, which mentions a schismatic SSPX parish in town, stretches believability), and so have a very good self-preservation motive not to support the Catholic side. If instead of a West Virginian mining town you'd taken, say, one from Pennsylvania, full of Poles and Irishmen, the story might have gone very differently. Particularly if even a single one of those Poles is literate enough to know where the Swedes went after the 30 Years' War.

 

[Worffan101]

I think it's also worth noting who they're being assholes to. The majority of a random West Virginian mining town are more likely to be Protestants than Catholics, and so have a very good self-preservation motive not to support the Catholic side. If instead of a West Virginian mining town you'd taken, say, one from Pennsylvania, full of Poles and Irishmen, the story might have gone very differently. Particularly if even a single one of those Poles is literate enough to know where the Swedes went after the 30 Years' War.

Good point. SW PA has a lot of Protestants, too, though. Really depends on the town and area, tbh.

 

[wcv215]

The more or less worship at the altar of Gustavus Adolphus, who was basically just as bad as any of his opponents,but instead is treated as just the most tolerant and wonderful man ever, is really insufferable. The guy was a key French puppet in turning what should have been a fairly quick conflict into the Thirty Years War.

Literal Spanish Inquisition...

That would mean more if the Spanish Inquisition's reputation among ordinary people at all matched what scholarship actually says about them.

 

[CraigD6]

I recently read 1632 by Eric Flint. While I had fun reading it, and I liked having working class protagonists, I found the hero Mike Stearns to be too much of a Mary Sue. Everyone keeps calling him "a prince" and "a hidalgo" because they think he's the best person in the world. And even though he does not have military experience, and quite a lot of people in and around Grantville do, the whole city of Grantville quickly decides he should command their military. Also, he and everyone else in the book is very quick ot make snap judgements about who to ally with in the war, and who to kill with enthusiasm. This is always regarded in the book as a good thing, like somebody's first impression at a brief glance is always correct, and it's always right to quickly kill somebody you instantly judge to be bad. In addition to this, there's a large number of scenes where absolute atrocities are occurring, but all the characters can think about is romance. I find all this to be bizarre.

Anyone else read 1632? What do you think?

I read 1632 soon after it came out, being drawn in by the cover and concept. I confess that I was sufficiently underwhelmed that I haven't read any of the follow on books, regardless of authors.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

That would mean more if the Spanish Inquisition's reputation among ordinary people at all matched what scholarship actually says about them.

I mean, from the time they were founded,Torquemada and his goons were a key tool in the religious genocide/ethnic cleansing of Southern Spain - this much is a fact.

It's also, from what I understand, a fact that the Inquisition supported itself via the seizure of assets from heretics, so their incentive for finding anyone innocent was rather low.

With these, it doesn't really matter whether or not they were as bloodthirsty as the popular image of them was - they were a horrible lot of people. About the only thing that I can think of that was good about them is the fact they apparently also hunted down priests who had the wrong kind of interest in children.

 

[FPSlover]

Also David Weber joined the team and he turned Mr. Simpson from a cartoon villain who's only there for Mike Stearns to humiliate and defeat with stunning rhetoric, into a badass hero in his own right.

Weber helps Flint tone down his masturbation and essentially reboots the right-wing strawman Simpson into a serious character.

Yeah, trying to reconcile between 1632 and the rest of the series is difficult to do in terms of Simpson. A decorated naval officer that saw action in Vietnam, who starts off his introduction to the town with being a CEO and working at the Pentagon (neither of which would endear him to the working-class population of Grantville)? It's as if he was actively trying to not become the head of the emergency committee. Not that he ever had much of a chance anyway, even without his ideas, given that he was a unknown to pretty much everyone. Although it is probably best that version of him did not get elected or else it would be... interesting.

I suppose they are lucky to have him, given their very limited choices for head of the Navy from among up-timer sources. Although it is rather surprising that there is not one retired army/marine or national guard officer in the town. I mean they have an Air Force one (Wood). Given that there are a fair number of veterans in the town, this seems a rather odd oversight. Granted, it's quite possible (even likely) that the person would have come from a non-combat branch, but they would know at least a bit more (in the organizational/leadership sense, which is a problem later on for Jackson) about running an army.

I think if Flint were to have proposed the scenario here at AH.com as an ISOT, we'd be on him like a ton of bricks saying Grantville is too tiny a town to hit at anything like the weight it does, to sustain its uptime tech.

Or even survive at all (or at least in large numbers) when they get hit with any of the number of diseases that 17th century Germany has that Grantville does not. Even if they have the antibiotics to treat said diseases in quantity (which is quite a stretch), those would run out quick and then there would be nothing left. That would leave them in a very bad position.

 

[Ryan lozano]

Hey guys what about Mormonism because in real life it’s not supposed to be widely accepted then it is in the USA (because they somehow got their religion on the constitution) it would be seen as a cult like it did in America before it was accepted more and people still are sus about it

 

[Shevek23]

Hey guys what about Mormonism because in real life it’s not supposed to be widely accepted then it is in the USA (because they somehow got their religion on the constitution) it would be seen as a cult like it did in America before it was accepted more and people still are sus about it

I'm pretty puzzled by what you are talking about here.

Are you referring solely to LDS congregants ISOTed back with Grantville, from uptime USA year 2000? Them and their later downtime converts? Or are you under the impression any form of LDS existed downtime and OTL historically in 1632? There were lots of modern denominations in Europe at the time all righty--but not Mormons, and not Methodists either.

I have lost track of how many different constitutions the town of Grantville and uptimer-populated areas of downtime Germany adopted in the half decade or so the various books span. I think at least three--first Grantville itself adopts a cut-down version of US, West Virginia and town charter strictly for itself and the opportunistically expanding zone coming under its immediate protection. Then they adopt a larger scale federal constitution for the United States of Europe, in some kind of personal semi-union with Gustav, really more in the character of a deep alliance. Then as the reach of the Grantville-influenced zone becomes much greater, on the scale of a modern very large European nation verging on an Empire, they adopt a third federal constitution with explicit recognition of noble status and an explicit acceptance of the Swedish monarch as emperor or whatever the heck they call him.

Pretty sure the first Constitution, modeled straight off the American federal and state one, had separation of church and state and absolute freedom of religion built right into it. I suspect the USE version carried that over too, as part of Gretchen Richter's hard line radical platform. Perhaps by the time we get to the third constitution, the one where there is a house of lords and so forth, there is some finessing in restricted forms of state religion but fenced in by continued affirmation of bedrock freedom of religion.

If by Mormons having a "special" place in any of these, you simply mean they are as free as any other denomination to compete for converts, that might make sense but it is a very peculiar way of saying it. If the town ISOTed had been from certain regions west of the Rockies, I can see uptimer Mormons, as the majority or a very large plurality of some Western towns, writing LDS into some constitution or other that European downtimers live with. Grantville, West Virginia? Not at all likely to be a Mormon stronghold! Nor as others suggest, a Roman Catholic one.

So--there are no downtime Mormons when Grantville appears. There are probably some uptime ones, but not very large numbers, and they are hardly in a position to take control of any state no matter how tiny. Their best bet, along with all other uptimer denominations, is to cling to uptime US doctrines of separation of church and state and total religious freedom.

As far as I know, the only governmental entity ever to formally give LDS a special status would have been the wildcat autonomous organization of Deseret; to be accepted as a Territory and then eventually state, Utah had to abjure any formal state ties with or special recognition of the Church on paper-it was quite enough the vast majority of voters in these bailiwicks were in fact Church members. Informally we might talk about a Mormon run territory or state...but no one (since the Salt Lake centered settlement accepted they would be submitting to US government and have to make the best of it) formally puts in in a formal written constitution.

 

[Neshomancer]

The was and LDS branch or at least members of it in Grantville and it's... unortodox doctrines did get a couple of its members in trouble, but then freedom of religion was enforced.. According to the wiki they did convert some people in France, though that's uncited and I'm unsure which book that happened in. I've considered at various times considered sending Nauvo in 1844o prior to Joseph Smith leaving for Carthage where he would die instead of 2000 Grantville, but I'm unsure how well that would go.

 

[Ryan lozano]

Also another thing I’m disappointed at this book series is the nobles being stupid on ruling like when they try to govern the USE they fail and the down timers are angry when they should be happy since these nobles known how to lead instead the nobles put bad laws that make them question themselves in the aftermath i mean if one did get to be leader they would adopt some of the modern rules to their advantage to make everyone happy
Oh and one other thing in the first novel is when the king of Sweden ask the uptimers to join him they refuse I’m like why you just got out of a battle where you almost died and your just a town and you refuse to join someone because of monarchy come on irl if that happens you will join

 

[Shevek23]

...I've considered at various times considered sending Nauvo in 1844o prior to Joseph Smith leaving for Carthage where he would die instead of 2000 Grantville, but I'm unsure how well that would go.

Bearing in mind such a small town as GV is unlikely to sustain all the uptime perks claimed in the books and will probably have less reach than the books suggest, I don't think the entire LDS following of 1844 in Nauvoo would amount to much either--even if they were unproblematic in denomination, either a Catholic town of this size (probably none outside Ireland existed in the USA or Anglosphere, we'd be ISOTing a French or Irish or Polish or Italian town, or maybe mid-19th century Belgian) or Protestant one, take your pick of where and what denomination, would be needed to be accepted by one side as one of their own, sort of. Nor would uptimers from a mere 2 centuries hence have nearly as much to offer. Well, steam engines and telegraphs, I guess, designs for clipper ships and sidewheeler steam ships, somewhat better guns maybe, if someone is a gunsmith. By that same token they don't "fall" as far, if they have enough farm and pasture around, and enough lumber, I suppose they can partition off their own territory and negotiate with downtime powers for a place in one alliance system or the other, and benefit it.

LDS with prophet Smith still alive and calling the shots? Neither side will accept him as anywhere near close enough to orthodox. Mind, I roll my eyes at the form of modern US bigotry that pretends Mormons aren't Christians or are any odder than a great many denominations (I saw a little bit of that on the other side hearing some Protestant people casually expressing the willies at various items of Catholic iconography I was accustomed to accepting as mere background). But in terms of detailed doctrine, it is pretty far from the prevailing constellation of Lutheran-Calvinist spectrum. Indeed there were more radical sects than Lutherans or Calvinists in 1632--but they didn't do well, Lutherans or Calvinists would turn on them and persecute them with as much vigor as they attacked "Papists." It would be Prophet Smith and his followers against all of Europe. I suppose if they demonstrated their willingness to aid the Protestant side they might get grudging and skeptical acceptance as useful allies, but not to the point that they'd be allowed to send missionaries and so forth. Carving out their little theocratic county and holding it would be about the best I'd expect. And that would be a fortunate stroke of diplomacy.

If landed in Thuringia much where Grantville is in the books, I think they'd be in trouble being in largely Catholic controlled regions, despite the recent Gustavus Adolph victories. They might be valued as front line shock bastion, but that just leaves them exposed to ongoing Catholic campaigns in the long run.

If Grantville's story has any plausibility, it is that this many years into the 30 years War it is obvious already how desirable peace is, and GV's denominational diversity and uptime centuries of peace, or at least truce, between Catholic and Protestant divisions, is a good model for people sick of the war seeking a third way out. I doubt it is big enough to have this effect actually but anyway it is a step in the right direction. And it is not like examples of such truce were nonexistent in 1632; nearby Switzerland for instance.

 

[Shevek23]

when they should be happy since these nobles known how to lead

Do they really? Here is where American prejudices might blind me to cartoonish versions of same by the American authors, notably Flint himself. My expectation is that aristocrats are at best par for the course, some are statesmanlike, others are idiots. A system like the British one (which here is still just English) where the "nobles" are a collective of gentry, who operate in their special status via belonging to a special class with special roles in general governance of the commonwealth as a whole, but don't get devolved major powers of autonomy in their own personal right (they might say have a lock on being appointed Royal Justices, but the point is they hold their regional magisterial power as a gift from and as agents of the King, or King-in-Parliament, not by personal right, might be put forth because the nobility and monarch are pruning the bush as it were, electing the more competent among themselves as consensus agrees and putting the idiots out to pasture as landlords and not much more.

The German nobility as portrayed (I can't be sure how accurately or otherwise, but it seems plausible for this region) are more like medieval lords--each one a petty monarch within their limited territorial sphere, having obligations to peers only in the sense of being part of a branching fractal hierarchy of lordship. But at the bottom of the ladder, we have individuals who regard themselves as having quasi-kingship over their handfuls of subjects. A system like that is bound to produce various forms of local incompetence without much check on it if any, which would be much resented. Peasant revolts were a thing throughout the Middle Ages and into this period, for reasons--the American message of "no nobles no kings" would resonate among fair numbers of people, more so in places with particularly fat-headed lords of various types--some just stupid, others grasping, others cruel or over-ambitious.

I do think the later books do a fair job of showing individual nobles who have various virtues--some remain class enemies of the commoners but astute enough to play the game by the new rules, others are shown as having humane virtues and indeed delivering a bit on the premise of noblesse oblige. Hence the third constitution if I counted right in which Grantville and Magdeburg permit themselves to be incorporated into a system recognizing noble classes; to maximize the spread of the fundamentals of uptime democratic liberal humanism, the uptimers and their far more numerous downtimer radical enthusiasts compromise a bit.

I can't agree, only agree to disagree, with your apparent advocacy of the notion nobility is actually a good thing. That it can be tolerated and worked with, if suitably checked by democratic power to override it when it goes bad, I can accept. I don't think Americans or people living in Latin American republics would be better off with a formally categorized gentry; the power and irresponsibility of our informal aristocracies are quite bad enough.

I’m like why you just got out of a battle where you almost died and your just a town and you refuse to join someone because of monarchy come on irl if that happens you will join

Depends. If at all possible--no I wouldn't want to. What I might want to do is what they do, which is assert a strong and cordial alliance with a "good king," if he doesn't seem hellbent on subjugating my fellow citizens sooner or later.

If my ISOTed community is fatally weak on its own, doomed to succumb to one conquering king or another, yes, we have to pick the least bad one and suck up to them. Or if one gets there firstest with the mostest and himself demonstrates overwhelming force, welp, we are conquered and perhaps must make the best of it. But these would be unfortunate outcomes.

The USA as an independent nation was founded on the premise that we don't need lords or kings. Submitting to a noble/monarchial regime is a defeat and out of grim necessity, not because people ought to be part of some aristocratic hierarchy or other.

 

[Neshomancer]

If landed in Thuringia much where Grantville is in the books, I think they'd be in trouble being in largely Catholic controlled regions, despite the recent Gustavus Adolph victories. They might be valued as front line shock bastion, but that just leaves them exposed to ongoing Catholic campaigns in the long run.

You make good points. I was just thinking a more religiously homogenous ISOT, with a proselytizing bent and a charasmatic leader could change people's interpretation of the Event.