xeoran wrote:

Do you read the anonymous Spengler column in the Asia Times too? Very good- anyway, I agree with all you say.

I haven’t read much of him.  Much of my experience of Spengler has come from the fellow who runs this website:

http://www.johnreilly.info

I really like his articles, if only for the fact that he has an actual sense of humor, a trait that is surprisingly rare to find in someone commenting on history and contemporary politics.

John Reilly's great.  Alternate history with a healthy doses of keen wit!

and reviving another thread (sorry, me new-one browsing through the forum)

What if the Nazis actually DID have the Norse/Germanic gods on their side?

it has already been thought over...

The history of the comic follows ours, until one night during the winter of 1943, when a number of bright lights appeared over Nazi-occupied Europe. Intentionally or otherwise, the slaughter of the death camps has somehow been used to summon the Aesir, Norse gods. Quickly allying themselves with the gods, the Nazis are able to push aside their mortal foes. The extended war has an amazing effect on human technology - by the fifties, the American military has a manned spy satellite.

The trickster, Loki, works against his fellow Aesir. On the night they arrived, Loki used his magic to whisk hundreds of thousands of death camp internees to safety in Persia. Thanks to his knowledge of magic, the American government cracks the necromancy angle - before that, they had assumed the Aesir were secretly alien invaders. (This is a reversal of roles from the The Mighty Thor series of Marvel Comics, which partially inspired Brin, and where Loki is the unquestioned villain).

As the Nazis continue to conquer the world, with the help of their Japanese allies (and their Shinto gods), the story of the necromancy spreads. As a result of "Asian faith and African desperation... and all the madness of the tropics", the multiple gods of the developing world are given form through human sacrifice, band together and fight the Aesir (who have to keep to colder regions). As the Tropicals advance, they burn the Arabian oilfields, leading to global warming. With the atomic-armed Nazis beginning to understand the principles of nuclear winter, the remaining free Americans must race against time to prevent the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy...

Why, I'd never heard of this! Shame on me, I suppose

some kind of offshoot from the Warhammer 40k universe, the setting of The Death Korps of Krieg mixes it's Scifi (and isn't scifi just future fantasy )based origin with a "trench horror meets weird war" optics. Haven't played it but the design suits my taste just fine:

Originating from the planet of Krieg, the Death Korps was established after their planet was bombed by the Imperials. Krieg was a sight of a rebellion against the Imperium of Man, after of which the Imperials began a five hundred atomic bombing. The Death Korps of Krieg is a siege specialist regiment of the Imperial Guard. Their home world of Krieg was ravaged by 500 years of nuclear civil war and bitter trench warfare which left the world little more than a scortched rock of dust and mud. Today the regiments raised on Krieg seek to repent themselves from their former treachery against the Imperium by displaying a disturbing disreagrd for their own lives in combat. They excell at stationary warfare and defensive fighting in particular...