Talk: The More it Changes

Well, I guess I need to get a Kindle.

My first generation Fire has slowed to a crawl, and worse still, when I plug it in, I have to hold the charger in place or it won't connect to whatever it needs to connect to inside. Rather than pick up the HD or HDX and have to go through the same thing some time late next year, I waited for one of the periodic sales that drops the basic Kindle from $89 to $69. (You can get it for $69 anytime, but then it's ad-supported, and fuck that noise.) I have to say I couldn't be happier with it. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:26, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

The first pages of HT's contribution are available. It's set in Ukraine just weeks after the First Partition of Poland. No idea what the POD is here, but there is a paragraph where the main character reflects that it's August 24, 1772 for the Catholics, August 13 for the Orthodox, 25th of Av, 5532 for the Jews, 24th of Jumaada al-awal, 1186 to the Muslims, and then rather ominously, by a "new" reckoning, it's the 11 month of year 95. TR (talk) 17:36, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

So the "new reckoning" is based on something that happened in the late summer of 1676. Well all I can find in a very perfunctory search that might be relevant is that 1676 began a five-year war between Russia and Turkey that was provoked by Turkish expansion into Ukraine. I'd never heard of this before and I have to say, the Wikipedia article makes it sound pretty damned boring and insignificant. Nothing to start a whole new calendar over. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:26, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

Leeuwenhoek discovered microorganisms that year. Maybe a meaner scientific revolution? Spinoza died the following year. Maybe he doesn't and founds a new religion? Of course, HT could just be making something up out of whole cloth.

I suppose the key to directing our guesses would be to learn something about this computer game the collection's based on. However, I don't particularly care. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:31, May 17, 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, according to the publisher, a paper edition will be released. I might try my local library in a week or so. TR (talk) 04:43, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

Given that I have no interest in this Europa Universalis thing, that rules out buying the book for me. I might download the free sample on my Kindle; for most anthologies the sample cuts out in the middle of the second story, so if Turtledove's is the leadoff hitter and is anywhere close to being reasonably short, I should be able to read the whole thing. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:31, May 17, 2014 (UTC)

The only connection to the game is that all of the stories have PODs between 1444 and 1821, which is the time frame the game covers. You don't have to have played the game to appreciate what the authors are doing. TR (talk) 15:24, May 17, 2014 (UTC)

Well that's a tenuous connection, though it works to the advantage of those of us who haven't played.

Cross-promotion is an odd animal sometimes. 75.171.173.89 02:15, May 18, 2014 (UTC)-TR

Yeah, I've found that a few times. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:09, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, Turtledove's story is the second, not the first, so I wasn't able to get the whole thing via the sample. I got the thing with the dates and a few pages of wandering about in the town. I enjoyed that part, actually; exploring richly atmospheric preindustrial communities is something HT does quite well. Possibly there was a hint as to what's up when the POV character reflected that a few months earlier the nobleman who ruled the town had switched his allegiance from the King of Poland to the Emperor of Austria. The Emperor's name is Joseph: presumably that's Maria Theresa's oldest son, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. However, his title is Emperor of Austria, not Holy Roman Emperor. In OTL 1772, the Holy Roman Empire still had thirty-four years and three emperors to go.

I'd wondered about the Austrian Emperor thing as well and did some Googling. Apparently, by the mid-18th Century, Austria's status as the heart and soul of the HRE was so widely recognized that the Holy Roman Emperor was informally called the Emperor of Austria as well as by his proper title.

Hmm, maybe. It's really all we have to go on till we see the story proper. Something happens in 1676, a new calendar is created to mark the event, and the Holy Roman Empire may or may not fall as a result. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:09, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

On the plus side, we'll have another historical figure. On the minus side, the article seems likely to be on the order of "During the reign of Joseph, the events of 'The More it Changes' took place", a la Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Charles II of England. I'm also thinking that a category for Heads of State of Austria is a thing worth creating. 75.171.173.89 02:15, May 18, 2014 (UTC)-TR

Might we be able to subcat it up a bit? Holy Roman Emperors should be distinguished. Austria may have been the HRE's successor state, and it may even have been Austria by another name in the 18th century, but Charles V goes a ways back to a time when the concept of Austria was not all that well defined.

Well, we'd have only two Holy Roman Emperors even after we add Joseph, so that's a separate issue.

Is that all? Huh, somehow I thought there were more. We can always hold out hope that another gets name dropped later on in "TMIC," but otherwise, never mind. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:35, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

From what I can tell, every Holy Roman Emperor from the 14th Century until the HRE was dissolved also held the title of "Archduke of Austria" with the understanding that in addition to being Emperor and whatever other titles that might have, they were the "ruler" of Austria. So in addition to being HRE, Charles V for example would also be Head of State of Austria in the capacity of Archduke. With the dissolution of the HRE, the title of Archduke seems to have been more to denote possible heirs apparent. Obviously, Franz Joseph I of Austria and Charles I of Austria wouldn't be Archdukes in their capacity of Austrian Head of State, they be Emperors of Austria, but they did hold the title of Archduke.

Wikipedia's approach is to have the broad HoS of Austria, and then subcats with "Rulers of Austria" and "Presidents of Austria". The "Rulers" category is then split up into the "Margraves of Austria" (which we don't have) and "Emperors of Austria" (everyone after the dissolution. We have Franz Joseph and Charles I).

We only have Arthur Seyss-Inquart and his 24 hour administration as Prez, so creating that category wouldn't be worth doing.

Stupid "Haldweim not Waldheim" dodge rears its ugly head once again. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:35, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

If we go ahead and do this, I propose we create the "HoS of Austria" cat, leave Seyss-Inquart in there, then create the broader "Rulers of Austria", and then just throw the HRE who also doubled as Archduke and the Austrian Emperors proper in there. TR (talk) 18:20, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

I guess that would be the way to do it. It lacks a certain elegance, I must say. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:35, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

Also, Category:Hapsburgs will grow. Hip hip-- Turtle Fan (talk) 04:09, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, Maria Theresa was still co-ruler with Joseph at the time of the story's setting. The failure to reference this is tantalizing, but since it's obviously early in the story, not that tantalizing. 75.171.173.89 02:15, May 18, 2014 (UTC)-TR

Ooh, I'd love to do an article on her. The context of the cobbler's comment was one in which neglecting to mention her is not all that telling. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:09, May 18, 2014 (UTC)

Nothing much has happened at the point at which the sample cuts out, so unless Turtledove's condensed the payoff into a couple of pages it must have ended quite early in the story. It's hard to tell but it does seem like something was about to go down; I'd prefer ending the sample on a cliffhanger to stopping at a random point as it usually does.

If there's a paper version in the works I too will hold off and see if I can get my hands on that at the library. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:01, May 17, 2014 (UTC)

The PB edition is officially available. TR (talk) 17:23, May 22, 2014 (UTC)

Well that should clear things up.

By the way, my Kindle broke just yesterday. Screen cracked. I called Amazon, played dumb as to how it happened, and they shipped out a replacement for free. What a nice company. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:20, May 22, 2014 (UTC)

Bit the bullet, bought the kindle edition, have it in my cloud. I don't think I'd ever even heard of Sabbatai Tzevi until I read this story, so I was certainly never going to guess this POD.

A couple of good historicals out of the deal. Yay.

It's a grim piece all-in-all. TR (talk) 21:20, September 16, 2014 (UTC)

I'd forgotten about this. I've never heard of Sabbateans either. I'm reading the Wikipedia article but I'm not clear on what would make them such bad news. I know SE Europe at the time was not known for religious tolerance generally; I know that Sabbateanism would be offensive to both Judaism and Christianity; and I can easily piece together that, if they converted the caliph, they'd have significant military resources at their disposal (and surely would draw the hatred of orthodox Muslims). So religious conflict in SE Europe would be five-cornered instead of four-cornered, but that's not exactly a notion that strikes fear into my heart. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:54, September 17, 2014 (UTC)

Well, you do have the issue of Sabbatai believing himself to be the Messiah, and so obviously his followers believed the same thing, and continued to believe so in this story. That's always going to make people a little more...fervent...in their beliefs and actions, and destructive in their self-righteousness.

But I don't think that we are meant to Yetzkhak's concerns that Sabbateanism is going to supplant all other religions 100% at face value. This is a person who comes from a frequently victimized group now watching a new series of super-pogroms that attack Christians as well as Jews (we learn these guys are making trouble in Russia and Prussia, so it's not just the Catholics who are targeted). While he's not dumb, he's also not well-educated. Given the nature of communications of the time, he's not fully informed. He also lives in a newly partitioned area under a very distant monarch who seems to be taking an indirect approach to ruling his new lands, and not doing much of anything about this threat, meaning he and everyone he loves are vulnerable.

A real-life parallel might be ISIS/ISIL--as a practical matter, for those of us looking from the outside, ISIS is not likely to accomplish anything like a caliphate or global domination or whatever half-assed pipe-dream they are spouting off about this week. But for those under ISIS rule, or in ISIS's path, ISIS miht as well be the masters of the world. (Obviously in the 18th Century, such a group could probably gain more long term success with at least the Ottoman Empire behind it than a relatively isolated entity in the 21st Century could.)

In any event, it's a grim story, but it's also one that I really hope HT revisits soon. TR (talk) 16:17, September 17, 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of thought of ISIL; and while I can see why they'd be unpleasant, I just don't really see this as being much of a change. As I said, it's just the addition of a fifth player to what had already been a very bitter four-cornered contest. I'm also skeptical about Sabbateanism gaining ground as it has in this story. Sabbatai appears to have been fairly charismatic. I guess we'd need to know more about his followers' theology, but offhand I can't think of much of a spiritual need you'd find in SE Europe that would lead to a rapid spread of the religion. If he converted the caliph a lot of Muslims would follow him (though I'm certain that a greater number would be scandalized and outraged, and would follow another caliphate sooner or later), but Muslims were a minority in the HRE. Some Jews would be swayed as well--clearly not all, based on the POV character--but they're a smaller minority still. Tell a Christian "Hey look, here's someone who fulfills the ancient Hebrew messianic prophecies!" and the answer would be "No thanks, I've already got a guy for that." Granted, both the Catholic and Orthodox churches had their corruptions as well as their spiritual laxities at this point, and I know that heavy-handed efforts to suppress new religious movements never work; but if Christianity in SE Europe was threatened at this time, the greatest danger was secular philosophies. I just don't see what the Sabbateans would offer that would allow them to carve out a niche in the already-crowded religious terrain of that place and time. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:03, September 18, 2014 (UTC)