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Updated 2005-10-31

Pete's Draka Page

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The Domination of the Draka

This is my page for S.M. Stirling's creations, the Draka and the Domination of the Draka. The Draka characters and situations are copyright © S. M. Stirling and may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission.

WARNING!

The Draka and their Domination rely quite heavily on slavery, brutality, racism and several other concepts and philosophies incompatible with "Political Correctness." If any casual mention or discussion of these as common occurrences on this family of alternate historical timelines would offend you, you are welcome to leave now.
In the words of S. M. Stirling himself (from an interview with Don Kinney, found in a newsletter document that is no longer on the net), "it's a dystopia, you twit." So don't expect it to be nice, except when the contrast between Maxfield Parrish and Heironymous Bosch is apropos.

Note: Word documents are now guaranteed only to work in Word 97 or later, and not earlier versions. Sorry!

What I have here is:

• An Eurasian War scenario for the Avalon Hill grand strategic World War II wargame "Rise and Decline of the Third Reich" aka "Third Reich" aka 3R, specifically 4th edition.
  I don't have any other scenarios yet for this or other games, but I would appreciate hearing from others who might want to do a Eurasian War scenario for other WWII wargames (board or computer). Some computer game possibilities are: "The Operational Art of War", "Pacific General" (the Panzer General series with a scenario editor), and "Axis & Allies: Iron Blitz" (the release with a scenario editor).
  Anyway, in the file EURASIAN.ZIP are the following:
  • Eurasian War Scenario Rules - Long version with comments on the rules, Word 97 .DOC format
  • Same in .RTF format (should work on any other word processor)
  • Short version (deleted the comments), Word 97 .DOC format
  • Domination scenario card, .PDF format
  • 2 counter sheets, .PDF format
  • Excel 5.0 spreadsheet for the Domination Force Pool, Third Reich air and naval combats, and some of my obsessive drivel
  • Eurasian War Strategies (all the drivel that I took out of the rules document, and more besides!), Word 97 .DOC format
• A "Drakon"/"Batman: The Animated Series" crossover fanfic. This one could use more details in the middle. BATDRAK.DOC in Word 97 .DOC format, or converted to HTML.
• A "Drakon"/"The Simpsons" crossover fanfic. Can't we have some fun with the Draka once in a while? DRAKSIMP.DOC in Word 97 .DOC format, or converted to HTML.
• Another Draka timeline, inspired by Ian Montgomerie's "Draka 2". Mine is called "Draka 2α" (that's supposed to be a Greek lowercase alpha character) and is currently "in-progress" near the end of the Second Great War. I'd appreciate any comments on it that you care to send. No Word document this time, just HTML: Draka 2α timeline.
• An unauthorized additional chronology for the period after the Eurasian War on the "official" Draka timeline, based on "The Stone Dogs", available in HTML only. I developed this to help me with the following fanfic. Although I may disagree with some of what happens, it's the authoritative source as far as I'm concerned. However, I've corrected what I thought were typos or internal contradictions.
• An incomplete novella-length fanfic set just before the Final War. I'm posting it even though it's only just starting to tell a story, based on the positive reaction to an early draft that was full of errors. And yes, it's a "Mary Sue," although I hope to avoid the worst aspects of that. Available only in HTML: "A Connecticut Yankee in the Archon's Court". I'd appreciate any comments on it that you care to send.
• Some problems that I personally had with what's in "The Stone Dogs", HTML only. Ian Montgomerie commented on the satellite portion, but I haven't heard from S.M. Stirling yet — maybe I offended him, which wasn't my intention.
• Rather than write another page, thought I'd point out some strange things visible on the cover of "Under the Yoke":
  • First, the combination of shackle, barbed wire, and gun hanging down from the upper right corner. How did that happen? Is a soldier flying through the air like Peter Pan, behind an ornate overhang hung with shackles and decorated with barbed wire?
  • Second, what appears to be a tilted Eiffel tower surrounded by a high cloud of dust. Those aren't trees if they only partially obscure the view of the structure of the lower part of the tower, unless the thing is incredibly overgrown or the tower is unsafely tilted towards the front of the picture. There's more of this dust effect on the right side of the picture, but a lighter color, possibly faded with distance - more likely trees there though. Just can't tell what was supposed to be going on here.
  • Third, a violation of placing objects in foreground/background order, wrapped in what is probably humor. The dirigible behind the tower has the drakon in the middle of dropping the shield, shackle and bush knife, and is breathing fire. Is the drakon actually pushing the tower sideways? Aren't the bush knife and drakon's tail drawn in front of the tower? Actually the tail appears to curl around the tower. No wonder the war ended the way it did! Drakon jumped off a dirigible and attacked Paris! (where's Godzilla?) The dirigible is tilted a bit, but that's actually reasonable if I can go by a picture in my dictionary. The whole thing is even stranger when you notice there's a "normal" Draka dirigible hiding behind the hanging shackle and gun. All in all, a very strange piece of artwork, if you look beyond the wooden faces and the soldiers.
• With his permission, Ben Breeck's "How I Damned The World" fanfic is here, some editing by me.
• Since Ben Breeck apparently agreed, my timeline for his "How I Damned the World" fanfic is here as well.
• With a disclaimer already included when it was posted, here's my edited reposting of the incomplete "Wizards and Snakes" fanfic also by Ben Breeck, and an archive (14 kB .zip) of the original posting.
• Donavan Barrett's fanfic "Yearnings" that used to be posted on his "Legends of the Sky Hurricane" website, some editing by me.
• Anne Marie Talbott (AMT) used to have a website with a number of Draka fanfics. One of the longest was the "Erin" series; 2 complete novel-length stories and a third incomplete one. These are too long to convert and repost, so I'll let you download the original .zip archive files. You can read the chapters on your own. Odds are I saved these from AMT's website sometime before it went away, but the overall archive date of 1999-12-26 is known to be from a backup program. These were also known as "Domination Centuries" although that isn't mentioned anywhere within the works.
  
  1. Erin, in which Gwen's scheme has a different outcome.
  2. Erin 2, starting about 14 years later.
  3. Erin 3, goes even further out, complete including Chapter 22.
• "Fun in the Woods" is short enough to repost, so it has its own page. You can still get the original format too. This is a collaboration between AMT and Stirling that IMHO should have gone into "Drakas!".
• "Trey" is an incomplete fanfic story by AMT that's quite short, so I reposted it and included an archive (14 kB .zip) of the original web page.
• "Anno Drakensis: 1887" is a complete fanfic by Eric Oppen that I last saw in an incomplete state several years ago. The content is copied and slightly edited from that available on Yahoo! Groups: Stirling.
• AMT's website also had the appendices from the first 3 books. These appendices aren't in the omnibus edition "The Domination", so I've transcribed them (again in some cases) for your enjoyment, and put those Draka appendices here.
• And I also have a page for the WWI wargame "Paths of Glory" here on the site. The files include a Draka scenario starting in 1914, and one starting in 1916. These are the work of Joe Bisio, with editing and web hosting by me.

Here are links to other Draka sites:

• Drakesland Calling for an alternate Draka timeline up to 1942 in a variant Eurasian War, although mostly to set up a GURPS campaign where the field is close to level.
• Jerome Bigge's WARLADY and WARTIME novels which include at least 3 fanfics (as of 2/02) involving the Draka.
• Ian Montgomerie's "Draka 2" timeline. Hosted by Ian's Alternate History.com.
• Baen Books published all the Draka books and lots of other Stirling works, but I wouldn't hold my breath for any more, regardless of what you read in an old soc.history.what-if FAQ about "Laughter of the Guns".
• Leigh Kimmel's "The Draka Universe" page with reviews of nearly all the Draka books.
• Yahoo! Groups: Stirling is for discussion of his works, although it goes off topic at the drop of an auric. The Author himself sometimes throws in a pithy comment.
• Andrew Aelfwine's webpage has several Draka crossover and fusion stories buried in the midst of a hoard of mostly anime fanfics.
• A GURPS race page with a link ("The Draka") to a homo drakensis description in game terms.
• Eric Oppen penned something about the Draka (homo drakensis apparently) in the Warhammer FRP game.
• Ken Wolfe's Fanfics page where you can follow the "Kiss of the Enemy" link to read his Sailor Moon/Drakon crossover fanfic. Story also available elsewhere, but this is the author's site.
• A small image of Kevin Davies' original artwork for the cover of "Marching Through Georgia". Notice the blue/black/yellow patches on the left shoulders of Draka who appear to be EvS and Sophie on the far right foreground? If you have the original book or a detailed version of the image, you can that they are different between Sophie and EvS. His has a dagger in the middle, and hers a lightning bolt. The anonymous soldier on the back cover (left side foreground) has 2 red chevrons, therefore a monitor or decurion?. I'd assume these are rank/specialty insignia on the left shoulder, instead of Domination shields (like on the drakon in the middle of the book's title, or near the top and bottom of this web page), which I guess appear on the right shoulder if anywhere.
• Robert Woodward's criticism of the early part of the original Draka timeline pokes at a few places Ian and I had missed.
• Kevin Clark's page for Layer Knives and Cutter Bars in the 2300 AD RPG quickly discusses the Draka while explaining these hand-held weapons in a game setting. Kevin Clark's page for Genetic Engineering in the 2300 AD RPG makes the "New Race" Draka an approximation of the "master race" in a eugenic conspiracy set in the game.
• The Zadanian League lists a Eurasian War scenario that runs from 4/1942 to 7/1950 for Civilization II, but the download link is broken, so use the next link instead.
• Apolyton Civilization Site: Civ II has the download for the Eurasian War scenario mentioned above. Scenario author unknown, and I haven't tried playing it myself.
• The Killer Bee Software page for Empire Deluxe has a scenario labeled "'Draka' 5 players, WWII theme, 7/17/95". It's the 15 kB file draka.zip buried in the 1.1 MB scenario file, need Empire Deluxe too. Scenario author unknown, not checked.
• John J. Reilly reviews "The Domination" and discusses slavery & sustainable development.
• naddy reviews "The Stone Dogs" and speculates about human speciation. Follow links on the page for MTG and UTY reviews.
• Future of the Draka (very short story) If there had been no Final War, here's how one Draka would have ended up.
• The "Nightmares" page of "The Patrick Henry League" discusses the Draka as an anti-America, with part of a scholarly article and maps for 1941 & 1946.
• Geis' comprehensive Draka site, although the timeline has minor faults and the site hasn't been updated in years.
• The Official S.M. Stirling Website being run by Bobby Hardenbrook. Still no Draka stuff there as of 2/02, but there's always room for improvement.
• Paul Herring's Ranma 1/2 fanfic "Paint it Black", which mentions the Draka and Domination as a minor historical influence on a very gory resolution of a variation on the core Ranma story.
• Anthony Mayer's Alternate History page where you should go to the bottom of the page to read his criticism of the original Draka timeline, and then read the short but well-written "Evil USA" timeline.
• The Southron Republic is a "Virtual" (alternate history) for the Mage: The Ascension game that brings about something close to The Domination.

The following used to have Draka-related content that has vanished, or the entire site is now gone. So these aren't actually links, but I'll tell you what used to be there.

• Anne Marie Talbott's Draka site used to be at http://www.mindspring.com/~atalbott/. It had more fanfics and info on the Draka and their contemporaries. However, it's gone since about October 2001! Maybe she's really busy with other things. I've posted the appendices that I transcribed for her, and several of the fanfics, but some of it's gone forever including comparisons of the drakensis, servus, ghouloons, humans and the kawtuh.
• Phillipe Garneau's Shadowrun crossover fanfic at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/8348/fanfic.html was incomplete and apparently abandoned shortly after being written in 1999 or earlier, but it was worth reading for "atmosphere" IMHO.
• Carl Hankel's Alternate WW2 History (site gone as of 4/02) mentions the Draka as a neighboring ATL that's trading with a slightly more successful Nazi Germany which is trying to fight off a USA that was trapped in a Tesla time bubble for 50 years.

Music to Dominate By

I don't have any Draka music, but how's this?
Depeche Mode: "Master and Servant"

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The Draka characters and situations are copyright © S.M. Stirling and may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. No profit is being made from the stories/documents/files found on this website.
By Peter Karsanow.
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