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mA posted:Because the idea that a white liberal Nazi with the heart of gold can undermine and reform the Nazi regime from the inside out is a preposterous premise, which isn't "complex" or "nuanced" at all. Rather it's quite cliched and banal. Sorry, my comment about not being your cup of tea was meant for the poster that seemed really upset by set design choices. I disagree about Joe, but I can see where your coming from.
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Mar 28, 2017 22:48
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/19/13995878/the-man-in-the-high-castle-review-season-2-amazon-worst quote:And, sadly, that’s what happens as The Man in the High Castle wraps its second season. Bad guys are shut down. Good guys succeed. Surprise twists arrive to make you roll your eyes at their ridiculousness. There’s no core idea, just the thought that if you make a show based on a popular book, set in an alternate reality, a lot of people might watch it, uncritically. Good guys like noted historical hero Heinrich Himmler
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Mar 29, 2017 13:57
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Wait, I thought the problem was that the show didn't present the Nazis as an ultimate evil and instead made them too attractive so Nazis would watch the show and love it?
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Mar 29, 2017 17:54
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The problem is that free will exists and the wrong people may exercise it.
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Mar 29, 2017 18:52
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Shbobdb posted:Wait, I thought the problem was that the show didn't present the Nazis as an ultimate evil and instead made them too attractive so Nazis would watch the show and love it? I silently rub one out every time I watch this show and observe sexy, sexy nazi symbolism.
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Mar 29, 2017 21:13
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Heil Kek!
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Mar 29, 2017 23:54
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Ofaloaf posted:If you manually tune the radio, there's a morse code message being transmitted at 1700, and a German numbers station at 1050. Someone's got to've translated both those things already, right? Anyone ever decipher these? Edit: vvv Thanks Longbaugh01 fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 03:49
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Longbaugh01 posted:Anyone ever decipher these? 1700 kHz just repeats “Resistance Hiding Messages in the Frequencies” in plain Morse code. The German and Japanese numbers stations have the same message, except that the Japanese one is a little corrupted. It’s an elementary cipher encoding: BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR MALTED MILK AND WATCH THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
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Apr 3, 2017 04:28
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Did anyone have annoying issues with subtitles on season 2, not 1? It seems that whenever a lengthy conversation happened in German or Japanese in season one they would subtitle it while leaving the smaller bits alone which was great. In season 2 it's not happening at all and I have to swap between turning subtitles on for any scenes not in English and it's annoying. Watching on the Samsung app for amazon in Australia if that makes a difference
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Apr 11, 2017 07:42
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teacup posted:Did anyone have annoying issues with subtitles on season 2, not 1? It seems that whenever a lengthy conversation happened in German or Japanese in season one they would subtitle it while leaving the smaller bits alone which was great. In season 2 it's not happening at all and I have to swap between turning subtitles on for any scenes not in English and it's annoying. Watching on the Samsung app for amazon in Australia if that makes a difference Definitely not.
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Apr 11, 2017 10:00
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Just watched both seasons back to back over a period of two months. Holy poo poo. What an incredible, wild ride. The show has many strong points, but the thing I like about it the most is that, while there are good characters, there are no good sides. Even the Resistance, which many shows of this type inevitably portray as the Good Guys who are just fighting for freedom, is led by evil, backstabbing assholes who have no regard for human life. What I'd like to see more of in S3: 1. The exact turn of events that led to Germany winning the war. Roosevelt's assassination was mentioned in passing at some point, and we saw DC getting nuked, but I'm wondering if the writers will eventually show us the fork-in-the-road moment. Maybe Einstein was apprehended before he could emigrate to America, and ended up helping them build the bomb? 2. Similarly, it would be awesome if we could explore John's background. He was in the US military, and ended up as a senior-ranking Nazi officer. I feel like there is a juicy story there. 3. Exploring the neutral zone a bit more would be great. We haven't seen much of it other than a desolate mining town back in S1. Like others, I'm ambivalent about Joe. He hasn't really had much agency in the main story this season. The character has potential though, so I guess we will see how he turns out after he inevitably finds himself working for John again. 
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May 3, 2017 05:59
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The why of this universe is one of my favorite things to dwell on - I know production has a guide which probably explains tons of stuff we haven't seen (yet?), but the thought and care put into the evolution of society with different historical precedents means as a viewer it's fun to parse the clues in the show to guess exactly what happened to get to this point. With the writer's strike averted, Season 3 should be progressing as expected! I'll be taking a break from this thread for a while and probably hop back in once release is near - but I will say I'm very excited about where the show may end up going, and hopefully my tiny team will pull off the gargantuan task ahead! And as a parting note, thanks again for all the comments about the show! It was an honor to be a part of such a neat property, and the teams at Amazon, Barnstorm and Theory greatly appreciate your support. Here are some links to some behind the scenes stuff from Season 2, primarily VFX related: VFX reel Interview with Blender Foundation Reddit AMA Interview with Allegorithmic
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May 3, 2017 15:37
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enraged_camel posted:1. The exact turn of events that led to Germany winning the war. Roosevelt's assassination was mentioned in passing at some point, and we saw DC getting nuked, but I'm wondering if the writers will eventually show us the fork-in-the-road moment. Maybe Einstein was apprehended before he could emigrate to America, and ended up helping them build the bomb? You could just look up the divergence of the book on Wikipedia if you don't care about being spoiled. I don't know why the showrunners would care to modify it, and from what I remember it's already good and plausible.
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May 4, 2017 04:24
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Just finished both seasons. The setting was amazing. A world ruled by Nazis is a horrible world to live in but they have some pretty cool looking buildings and jet planes. Unlike some posters, I really liked that the evil guys were also the good guys. John Smith probably joined the Reich in order to keep his family alive and one thing led to another and hey, look who's a big shot Obergruppenführer now. I found myself rooting for Chief Inspector Kido most of all, even though he gassed an innocent family for no reason. I imagine he was having regrets about that when Frank shot him though... at the very least, a regret for letting Frank live. For a non-evil guy, I liked the trade minister. Although I liked him more in S1 where he actually did stuff besides hang out with his ghost family. I disliked Frank in season 2. He was such an a-hole that I kind of wish he was offed in S1. Joe was pointless, as was the entire episode with LSD Germans. Julianna varied from okay to wonderful depending on the scene. Ed and the antique seller were okay. Did anyone else pick up on Ed having a crush on Julianna? Everyone just assumed he was gay because he was willing to give up his life to save Frank's but if you pay attention he mentioned that he once had a love but she's gone away. The one that moved away was Julianna.
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May 4, 2017 05:16
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Yeah, the heroes to me are pretty much Ed, Juliana, Kigo, Tagomi, and John Smith. Everybody else is kinda an rear end in a top hat. I really, really want to know in particular what drove John Smith, a guy who grew up in America and fought for this country, to turn traitor and fight alongside the Germans then totally buy into their philosophy (even if he's doubting it now).
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May 5, 2017 01:31
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Astroman posted:Yeah, the heroes to me are pretty much Ed, Juliana, Kigo, Tagomi, and John Smith. Everybody else is kinda an rear end in a top hat. Germany had a total victory on the US. Few people had a better vantage of that than John Smith, who saw his capital city being nuked to nothing. I can imagine in a total loss scenario that you start thinking that the victors are better, because well, they won. In his mind, I don't think he turned traitor- he believes that the country he served with is gone. The DC getting nuked scene does seem a little weird in context of the rest of the episode, but I've got a theory: John Smith was complicit in lowering the defenses of DC, similar to Baltar helping the Cylons in BSG. He didn't imagine the Nazis would actually nuke DC, but because he 'helped' he was given the opportunity to ascend in the Nazi government.
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May 5, 2017 17:31
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It's implied pretty heavily that it's the other American dude who was involved in the bombing. In the flashback, they say something along the lines of "x didn't show up to work that day" or "why can't we reach x", and then you see him in full Nazi uniform and a big smile within the same episode of thereabouts. I also don't know to which degree Smith buys into the idea as much as he's just comfortable benefitting from it as we've seen with the general concept of privilege and white supremacy in world history. Without drawing any real-world parallels, a lot of people are willing to sell their souls for a small reward - or uneven leg up on other people. ufarn fucked around with this message at 19:07 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 19:03
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A lot of Americans had racist attitudes towards the Japanese back then, especially after Pearl Harbor. Plus Smith had some personal experience fighting the Japanese. Also he was an intelligence officer and probably would have had knowledge of Japanese atrocities in areas under Japanese conquest. He probably saw Nazi collaboration as the best bet to protect himself and his family from the Japanese.
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May 5, 2017 19:14
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I think I would've loved Juliana's storyline with a more energetic actress.
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May 5, 2017 19:29
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:A lot of Americans had racist attitudes towards the Japanese back then, especially after Pearl Harbor. Plus Smith had some personal experience fighting the Japanese. Also he was an intelligence officer and probably would have had knowledge of Japanese atrocities in areas under Japanese conquest. Just check out the way Dr. Seuss draws the Japanese vs the Germans and Russians in his war comics. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/08/10/dr-seusss-wartime-propaganda-cartoons/
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May 5, 2017 19:50
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TheCenturion posted:Just check out the way Dr. Seuss draws the Japanese vs the Germans and Russians in his war comics. Yeah, or Looney Tunes from back then.
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May 5, 2017 19:55
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Plus Smith had some personal experience fighting the Japanese. This is a bit of a tangent, but I remember being sort of bothered by this. Smith and Kido are both veterans of the "Solomon Islands campaign", which historically was a strategic boondoggle where the Americans and Australians essentially tricked the Japanese into fighting a war of attrition that they couldn't win, ultimately resulting in the Japanese wasting thousands of soldiers and dozens of ships. I find it hard to square the idea of that campaign occurring (or, at least, being particularly memorable for its ferocity or brutality) with a universe where Japan was also in a position to storm the West coast. IIRC in the novel America was basically completely isolationist (because Roosevelt was killed in 1933 and Garner and his successors were bungling incompetents that never solved the economic crisis) and didn't bother fighting Germany or Japan until they were both already breaking down the door. I doubt we'll ever get any clarification or a detailed sketch of the timeline involved here, though. But hey, that's just me. 
HannibalBarca fucked around with this message at 23:05 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 23:02
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ufarn posted:It's implied pretty heavily that it's the other American dude who was involved in the bombing. In the flashback, they say something along the lines of "x didn't show up to work that day" or "why can't we reach x", and then you see him in full Nazi uniform and a big smile within the same episode of thereabouts. True, but you don't become the Military Governor of half a continent and highest ranking American Nazi by just kinda going with the flow in a lukewarm way. At some point John must have been pretty hardcore for Hitler. The one guy that got killed, his old German officer friend, talked about their days "fighting in the streets" together implying John did hand to hand combat against his countrymen.
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May 6, 2017 03:04
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Astroman posted:True, but you don't become the Military Governor of half a continent and highest ranking American Nazi by just kinda going with the flow in a lukewarm way. At some point John must have been pretty hardcore for Hitler. The one guy that got killed, his old German officer friend, talked about their days "fighting in the streets" together implying John did hand to hand combat against his countrymen. I was going to post about this very thing. The way those two talked in S1, they were old army buddies and went through the war. I almost wonder if OGF Smith actually is a German national who was placed in the US very young to grow up American, or just happened to be the child of German immigrants who grew up missing der Vaterland.
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May 6, 2017 13:25
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TheCenturion posted:I was going to post about this very thing. The way those two talked in S1, they were old army buddies and went through the war. I almost wonder if OGF Smith actually is a German national who was placed in the US very young to grow up American, or just happened to be the child of German immigrants who grew up missing der Vaterland. Well that's why it was shocking when we found out he was US Army. I don't think they'll go with something as trite as he was a German sympathizer; it's far more compelling if he was a Born on the Fourth of July tried and true patriot who grew up as American as apple pie who somehow bought into Nazism. The story of that, if they can pull it off believably, would be far more compelling.
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May 6, 2017 15:25
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Edith Keeler didn't die.
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May 6, 2017 20:02
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Astroman posted:Well that's why it was shocking when we found out he was US Army. I don't think they'll go with something as trite as he was a German sympathizer; it's far more compelling if he was a Born on the Fourth of July tried and true patriot who grew up as American as apple pie who somehow bought into Nazism. The story of that, if they can pull it off believably, would be far more compelling. Probably equal parts anger that his commanders failed (he already mentioned this) and not wanting to be executed and/or his wife forced into prostitution for the Imperial Japanese Army.
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May 6, 2017 20:08
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People assume that the John Smith in the US uniform that saw the DC nuke was the same timeline as John Smith: Groopiehooplefurry.
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May 22, 2017 21:11
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Fog Tripper posted:People assume that the John Smith in the US uniform that saw the DC nuke was the same timeline as John Smith: Groopiehooplefurry. That's actually a cool point. Maybe that's him in the 'correct' 1960's timeline, and what we're actually seeing is the Cuba crisis going south and DC getting nuked anyway. That's appropriately dark.
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May 22, 2017 21:25
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That would completely take away from the "correct" time line and the entire reason for Tagomi doing literally anything there. Sure he witnessed his happy life, but no gently caress you viewer. We have infinite timelines where America burns no matter what  Introducing a 3rd time line where America is hosed anyways would be loving retarded.
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Jun 7, 2017 06:47
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Fog Tripper posted:People assume that the John Smith in the US uniform that saw the DC nuke was the same timeline as John Smith: Groopiehooplefurry. It's much more interesting if he is. Plenty of loyal soldiers in the Wehrmacht realized how evil the Nazi regime was after the war in our timeline. Why wouldn't the same thing happen in reverse if the Nazis had won the war?
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Jun 7, 2017 06:54
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Shbobdb posted:It's much more interesting if he is. Plenty recognized that it was evil during the war, bitched in their diaries about how evil it was, and bemoaned the fact that they were ordered to massacre compliant villagers in Russia. But fought and massacred anyway because that's just kinda what people do. Probably the most upsetting and worldview changing things I've ever read was accounts of a Jewish writer from Romania who learned about massacres of Jews from a personal friend in the army who took part in one and then came back while on leave and told him about it.
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Jun 8, 2017 23:43
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Schizotek posted:Plenty recognized that it was evil during the war, bitched in their diaries about how evil it was, and bemoaned the fact that they were ordered to massacre compliant villagers in Russia. But fought and massacred anyway because that's just kinda what people do. Sure, and I imagine we had the same thing happen here too. "I knew there was something deeply rotten about America when we starting using black soldiers." Especially when it comes to the experimental integrated units (which happened in our world and absolutely would have happened in their world when manpower got very low). War is hell and governments are often alienated from their people. We can reconstruct those two to create a narrative that is on the right side of history. I'm sure there are plenty of people like Smith who adapted to the new world order and admit that they always knew the old order was evil. Hell, they make a point of it in their education system with things like "Pre-Nazi exterminations".
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Jun 9, 2017 01:12
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I just found out Danger Mouse has made an entire album based on the alluded to resistance radio in the series. Am I the only one who missed it? http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/03/03/518166877/resistance-radio-darkly-reimagining-the-60s-sound http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/inside-danger-mouse-sam-cohens-haunting-1960s-covers-album-w475056 http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/danger-mouse-soundtracks-the-resistance.html
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Jul 21, 2017 23:28
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Schizotek posted:Plenty recognized that it was evil during the war, bitched in their diaries about how evil it was, and bemoaned the fact that they were ordered to massacre compliant villagers in Russia. But fought and massacred anyway because that's just kinda what people do. Got a name or link to that? Sounds interesting.
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Jul 24, 2017 16:31
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McSpanky posted:Yeah all those white liberal Nazis with a heart of gold are so played out, like Dredging this from the last page because I couldn't agree more. More to the point, for an intriguing and solitary look at sympathetic nazis, devote an afternoon to reading Swastika Night which could be a companion book to this show.
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Jul 30, 2017 18:49
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Just finished this and thought it was great, season 2 finale was good and some great characters. Rooting for Smith and Kito despite their villainy is the show being good. On the whole 'why smith went Nazi' issue, let's not forget that prior to the war many people in the US and UK actually admired Hitler and thought fascism was cool and good. Not that much of a stretch to see people convert whole heartedly in the aftermath of crushing defeat.
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Aug 11, 2017 06:54
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Also the fact the US was in the great depression until the late 30s/early 40s in this world because there was no New Deal and economic growth when FDR was assassinated. So a competent nazi regieme which provided infrastructure and jobs would be seen as a good thing. I guess.
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Aug 11, 2017 07:54
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Finally got around to watching S2, after being somewhat underwhelmed by S1. I really liked it.
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Aug 19, 2017 00:12
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Just finished S2 and agree that it was a step above S1. I'm getting a little tired of Julianna literally crying as she single-handedly fights off groups of bad guys over and over again like she's shocked at the violence around her - I was hoping at some point she would kind of grow into the role and be a little more badass, but maybe that's just part of her unwavering faith in humanity or whatever. I don't think I've seen this mentioned but I'm looking forward to seeing if/how they handle the enormous can of worms opened at the end of the season. In our timeline we developed the H-bomb in the arms race against Russia and it makes sense the Germans never got that far since the Japanese still hadn't developed nukes. However, now the Nazis have seen the technology, AND they think Japan has it, which will drive their scientists to develop it, creating a situation where the Nazis have thermonuclear tech and Japan is maybe just getting its first fission device working. It seems like Japan *has* to acquire nukes quickly now because if the Nazis find out they're not quite there, they'll just roll over them.
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Sep 2, 2017 21:25
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