History Literature / TheBigOne

* AllThereInTheManual: The series has [[http://tbo.wikidot.com/ its own website]], which includes both [[TheWikiRule the official wiki on the series]] and a forum that deals with the series and some other AlternateHistory stories...and some other things as well]].

* AllThereInTheManual: The series has [[http://www.tboverse.us/ its own website]], which includes both [[TheWikiRule the official wiki on the series]] and a forum that deals with the series and some other AlternateHistory stories...and some other things as well]].

* AncientConspiracy: [[spoiler: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Targeteers/Daimones. While [[Really700YearsOld they themselves are ancient]], with at least one over [[TimeAbyss 2000 years old]], they've only been influencing world events for a hundred years or so. And even then, their efforts are by no means united towards some common goal besides general global stability. Plus, they don't all see eye-to-eye on many issues--it's implied that they only reason they're working together during World War 2 is because of the threat posed by Nazi Germany]].
* ApocalypseHow: Class 0-Germany gets nuked into oblivion.

* AllohistoricalAllusion: In this verse, Winston Churchill is seen as an exemplary peacetime leader who would have been an indifferent wartime PM. In our timeline, [[DontExplainTheJoke the opposite is true.]]
* AllThereInTheManual: The series has [[http://www.tboverse.us/ its own website]], which includes both [[TheWikiRule the official wiki on the series]] and a forum that deals with the series [and some other AlternateHistory stories...and some other things as well].
* AlphaStrike: The Big One is the ultimate example of an Alpha Strike; the bombers hit every single target in Germany in a single, massive, coordinated blow. This becomes the SAC operational dogma for the rest of the series. However, it is worth noting that in [=WW2=] the atomic bombs were used as they came off the production lines, not saved for a single massive blow. The difference is explained by differing strategic circumstances and by the dominance of General [=LeMay=] in the planning process ([=LeMay=] being the leading proponent of nuclear alpha strikes). Still, it's a debatable point of operational doctrine.

* AncientConspiracy: [[spoiler: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Targeteers/Daimones. While [[Really700YearsOld they themselves are ancient]], with at least one over [[TimeAbyss 2000 years old]], they've only been influencing world events for a hundred years or so. And even then, their efforts are by no means united towards some common goal besides general global stability. Plus they don't all see eye-to-eye on many issues, it's implied that they only reason they're working together during World War 2 is because of the threat posed by Nazi Germany.]]

** [[spoiler: Pretty much every one of the Daimones are fairly odd people, usually owing to most of them having been born some time ago. However, each one of them is most likely the best in the world at their chosen field of expertise, simply due to the fact that they have [[TheAgeless centuries]], if not ''[[TimeAbyss millennia]]'' of experience at it.]]

** A few characters (mostly German soldiers) postulate that the U.S. Military as a whole are this, considering that their methodology is basically 'Destroy the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible with as few losses as possible so we can go home'.

* DeathWorld: The state of post-war Germany. Most of the country is uninhabitable thanks to lingering radiation, almost all the lakes and rivers are heavily contaminated, and even the 'safe' areas are filled with isolated pockets of radiation that are deadly to anyone who gets too close.

* EasyLogistics: [[SubvertedTrope Not a chance.]] Fuel, guns, ammunition, tanks, ships, planes, and much else plus spare parts are fundamental for the war effort, and in the novels set during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the ability to bring them to the front lines and prevent the enemy from doing the same are plot points.

* IdiotBall: In ''Crusade'', Robert [=McNamara=] . . . Ahem, ''[[{{Expy}} McNorman]]'' and Ramsey Chalk issue a set of Rules of Engagement to the US Armed Forces, resulting in [[spoiler: the first combat loss of a SAC aircraft in the 20 years since The Big One in the form of Marisol (an RB-58), a ground engagement between a Marine unit and Caliphate troops, and a nuclear strike on Caliphate targets.]] All because they wanted to score some political points.

** Also from ''Winter Warriors'', the Finnish government. At the time they had an informal agreement with the US that, as long as they stayed in place and didn't actually take part to the German war effort anymore, their peace terms at the end of the war would have been simply a return to the 1940 borders with no reparations to be paid. They sent their troops to take part to the German offensive against the Kola peninsula, and once that was ''crushed'' and the Russians were seething for revenge (their most generous terms were that Finland would have to give up 30% of their territory and pay 600,000,000$ dollars in reparations in five years, assuming Finland surrendered ''immediately''. New terms would get progressively worse) the Finnish government was ''still'' willing to launch another attack. [[BreakTheHaughty At least until the first low-altitude fire raid of the B-29s burned out large areas of Helsinki as a warning]].
* InSpiteOfANail: The United States had all of the same presidents, in the same order although not always for the same number of terms, as in our own history between 1964 and 2008, there are subtle differences in their characters resulting from their different experiences and personal history. The sequence of presidents is radically different up to 1964, then is similar up to 2008, then starts to diverge again.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: The Japanese pull a preemptive at the end of ''A Mighty Endeavor'', deciding to scrap their planned Winter 1941 offensive (which would include the attack on Pearl Harbor), thanks the fact that pretty much the entirety of South-East Asia (notably, India, Australia and Singapore) have been heavily reinforced by American equipment ordered by Britain but never delivered. Then, the most effective Japanese division in Indochina gets defeated by a US-backed Thailand in a battle that sees both sides taking hideous losses.

** This is also [[TruthInTelevision Truth In Novels]]: historically, the B-36 was capable of ''out-dogfighting a F-86 Sabre'' - the jet that mauled the [=MiG-15=] in Korea - at operating altitude!
* MagicalRealism: Surprisingly, but not used in such a way that the ultra-realistic take on the AlternateHistory genre is derailed. [[spoiler: The Seer, the Thai Ambassador, and several other characters are revealed to be long-lived humans steering world events, and many SAC bombers, including Texan Lady and Marisol, appear not only to be sentient, but to be capable of human speech with their crews. [[CompanionCube In reality, many pilots and aircrew talk to their aircraft and a surprising number believe that, at some level, their aircraft responds.]]]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The dependence of the U.S. post-[=WW2=] on massive retaliation is historically correct; this was U.S. policy up to the very early 1960s. However, in the [=TBOverse=], this strategy is continued much longer (into the mid-1970s) into a period when it is inappropriate and the resulting limited strategic options are a severe problem for the U.S. Which leads to . . .

* NoseArt: Many aircraft in the series bear nose art of some kind. Most of the bombers carry pin-ups, and in the first novel a Super-Corsair is seen with a cartoon German being cut up with a chainsaw.

''The Big One'' is a 2007 alternate history/speculative fiction novel set in 1947 that depicts the ending of World War Two in a cataclysmic nuclear attack on Nazi Germany. Its basic premise is that an approach by Lord Halifax to the German Government received a favorable response and Halifax was able to engineer a change in government in the UK and bring about an armistice. This is not as outlandish as it might sound, in reality Halifax did make such an approach via Sweden but the Germans ignored it. In the story, the end of British resistance forces the USA to adopt an early war plan AWDP-1 that assumed no foreign bases will be available. The result is that the B-36 bomber gets full production priority (historically, the availability of foreign bases meant that AWDP-1 was abandoned in favor of AWDP-42 that saw the B-36 being deferred for two and a half years in favor of the B-29). Flash forward to 1947 and the B-36 fleet armed with nuclear weapons is ready. The result is a [[NightmareFuel truly terrifying]] description of [[KillEmAll what happens]] when a country is subjected to [[NuclearOption a full-scale nuclear onslaught]].

* MoralDissonance: The inherent contradiction between a strategic bombing policy and the nature of American society becomes steadily more obvious and less comfortable as the series of novels progresses. In the 1982-era story Lion Resurgent, [[spoiler: this reaches a crisis point when the U.S. deters an Argentine attack on Chile by a very overt and specific strategic nuclear threat. Later in the story, the Argentine government is taken down by a popular revolt following a British victory in the Falklands.]] President Reagan points out that the earlier threatened nuclear strike would have taken out the very people who eventually solved the problem and demands that United States policy be changed to provide a more varied range of responses.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: In the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-set novels there are multiple war crimes, to the point that some German survivors of the Battle of the Orkneys are surprised when they find out the Americans rescued crews from the sunk German warships (the Americans decided that ''Taney'' Justice didn't apply to the surface fleet. Submariners, on the other hand, are killed on the spot).
** PayEvilUntoEvil: What motivated American and Commonwealth troops to engage in them: revenge for what the enemy did to their own (such as the ''Taney'' Justice above: a U-Boote sunk a US Coast Guard boat and gunned down the survivors, and the Americans replied by killing every submariner who escapes his boat's sinking). [[CycleOfRevenge Of course, the Germans would take that as reason to commit more atrocities, the Allies would take that as reason to pay them in kind, and so on...]]
*** In ''Winter Warriors'' it's reported that the SS had tried to demoralize American Apache troops by taking prisoners, torturing them to death and leaving their bodies to be found. The Apache replied in kind, [[EvenEvilHasStandards and what they did to the victims made the SS vomit in horror]].
** Also in ''Winter Warriors'' the Finns capture a Commonwealth field hospital and kill everyone, [[EvenEvilHasStandards something not even the SS would do]] ([[PragmaticEvil it's simply more practical to put the medical personnel at work on their own wounded, and killing the enemy wounded in a field hospital only enrages the doctors]]). In their counteroffensive the Commonwealth soldiers refuse to take prisoners even against orders (as the brass wanted to know ''why'' such an act), Russia issues a harsh ultimatum (Finland had to give up a third of its territory, expel all German troops and then demilitarize or face Russian wrath and progressively worse terms), and the Americans firebomb Helsinki.

* ThoseTwoGuys / ThoseTwoBadGuys: The Kempeitai officers who appear in ''Ride of the Valkyries''.
* ThoseWackyNazis: Subverted utterly.
* TokyoRose: A British collaborator one, at that.

There is also a parallel collection of five short novellas called ''Conrad's Eye''. These novellas are detective stories that also look at some of the social issues of the {{T|heVerse}}BOverse.

** Unpublished short stories and first-draft books are available for the most part, though it's become something of a shared universe.
<<|{{Literature}}|>>

* ComplexityAddiction: The Germans commanders have this ''bad'', often coming up with overly-complicated schemes that blow up in their faces. Best showcased in ''Kazan Thunderbolts'': In order to seize a Russian-held island on the Volga River, the German command plans to sneak an SS platoon across the river at night for a surprise attack, except the SS Commander decides to add his own twist to the plan by using the German spy ring in the Kazan railway yard to divert ammunition supplies so that the wrong ammo gets delivered to the island so that the Russians will run out mid fight. Only for the American gunboat crew making the delivery to double-check their cargo and discover the wrong ammunition, which leads to both the Russians and Americans going in expecting an attack. Not only does this cause the attack itself to fail, but the Russian Secret Police are able to backtrace the mis-routed ammunition and round up the entire spy ring, which also happened to be the only way the Germans were getting warning of American bombing runs. Oops.

** Arguably the whole setting qualifies. World War II lasted years longer and killed millions more people than it did in our world. The war being ended by a nuclear attack makes the destruction of entire countries using such weapons plausible. That being said, by the end of the 20th century, Germany remains the only country to have been destroyed that way with other nuclear strikes being limited to specific military/industrial targets.

** Arguably the whole setting qualifies. World War II lasted years longer and killed millions more people than it did in our world. The war being ended by a nuclear attack makes the destruction of entire countries using such weapons plausible. In fact, by the end of the 20th century, Germany remains the only country to have been destroyed that way with other nuclear strikes being limited to specific military/industrial targets.

** Arguably the whole setting qualifies. World War II lasted years longer and killed millions more people than it did in our world, nuclear weapons don't have the stigma they do in our world and are used much more liberally, and entire countries have been wiped from the map.

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: {{Inverted|Trope}}, thanks to ForWantOfANail. Thanks to Halifax signing the armistice with Germany prior to (even if only by a few weeks) France's defeat, it's the ''British'' that get the reputation for surrendering, complete with the trope becoming 'Tea Drinking Surrender Monkeys'.

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: {{Inverted|Trope}}, thanks to ForWantOfANail. Thanks to Halifax signing the armistice with Germany prior to (even if only by a few weeks) France's defeat, it's the ''British'' that get the reputation for surrendering, complete with the trope becoming 'Milk Drinking Surrender Monkeys'.