It’s been exactly 8 years since this was posted and honestly, I don’t think we have an answer yet. But all of what Eric posted back then still stands. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baen’s Bar 24 April 2018 17:24 I can give you a few guidelines: 1) It won’t be “German,” for two reasons. First, not all Germans will be citizens of the USE. Austria is also a German nation, and if Bavaria retains its independence (which is still an open question) it will be also. Second, not all citizens of the USE are Germans. That’s already true and will become more true as things progress. (Tum te tum te tum…) Finally, there will be considerable political resistance to making the citizenship and ethnic terms synonymous. 2) It won’t be “Amideutsch.” The idea is preposterous. 3) There are two most likely possibilities: a) Someone who knows German better than I do may come up with a nifty way to solve the issue. “Vereinigen” (or something similar — I don’t remember the exact spelling) has already been suggested. b) Somebody comes up with something completely off the wall. These things do happen, after all. The term “American” came off the wall. So did the term “Ram Rebellion.” So did the terms “Yankee” and “Yank.” So did the term “Dixie.” My own preference would be for alternative 3-b. What about a term like “Yankee”? The following was in response to: Yankee didn’t come from nowhere. I read that the earliest use in English referred to the Dutch, from Janke, a diminutive of Jan. The association with the New England colonies is most likely because of 17th century Nieuw Nederland colony, which was taken over by the English as a result of the Anglo-Dutch Wars. 25 April 2018 05:52 When I said “came from nowhere,” I didn’t mean that the term literally had no connection to anything. All…
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The first Assiti Shards with the largest number of stories written about it.
This isn’t an area I know much about, but Eric was meticulous about this, and he definitely knows a lot about it. This is a quick explanation of the structure and I am sure Eric and many of the other writers can spend hours talking military structure with you, if you are ever at a minicon or on a salon call and are so inclined. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baen’s Bar 05 July 2015 15:38 (Bjorn Hasseler) Eric Flint created the second lieutenants, battalions, and majors, not me. “Officially, the USE army had a very clear and simple structure: Each division consisted of nine thousand men commanded by a major general. Each division had three brigades of three thousand men, commanded by a brigadier. Each brigade had three regiments of one thousand men, commanded by a colonel. Each regiment had two infantry battalions of four hundred men, commanded by a major, and an artillery company of two hundred men usually commanded by a captain. Finally, the infantry battalions were composed of four companies of one hundred men, commanded by a captain. A company consisted of three platoons of thirty men commanded by a second lieutenant, and a heavy weapons unit of ten men commanded by a sergeant. The company’s first lieutenant usually served its captain as his executive officer.” (_1636: The Saxon Uprising_, chapter 1, page 18) But since “Such was the neat theory reflected in the official table of organization. Mike was pretty sure the ink hadn’t dried yet before reality began to diverge from theory” (ibidem), I’ve had Colonel Derfflinger appoint Old Reinhold (Reinhold Rühle) as captain of camp followers because he’s used to having someone handle that and Major von Hessler make a couple cousins fähnriche (ensigns) instead of second lieutenants because while they’re family, they’re 20 and 16 years old and extremely inexperienced (in his mature, 23-year-old opinion. Ahem.). Yes, at…
Eric wasn’t perfect, and he would have been the first one to say so. Below is his comment on the bar regarding why there are 8 stars on the USE flag. But after that is what Mike Nagle wrote in the Grantville Gazette. The reason was given in the original novel 1632, something Eric wrote more than 20 years before his Bar post. It’s easy to think that an author will remember everything they’ve written, but that simply isn’t the case. It especially isn’t the case when it’s been decades with many books in that series and multiple totally unrelated series having been written in the interrim. Personally, I think it’s pretty amazing that we have so many writers and fans who can help us keep track of all these details even when we forget them. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baens Bar 20 February 2020 00:59 I’m guessing, because BALTIC WAR was written so long ago that my memory is fuzzy, but I suspect the reason there are eight stars on the cross of the USE flag is simply because that’s how many our artist Tom Kidd put on it and it didn’t occur to me at the time to think about the logic behind it. There’s no logic at all to having it based on the original cities in the New United States. What would make sense would be to do it the way the USA’s flag works, which is to add a star every time a new province is formed. Then — oh, joy! — we can have endless wrangles because the imperial cities start clamoring that they damn well ought to be represented on the flag as well as the provinces, and grouchier members of the CoCs would insist that provinces under imperial administration shouldn’t be given the same august status as self-governing provinces. Mike Nagle (excerpted from 1632 and Flags of…
It’s no secret that Grantville is based on the real town of Mannington. Eric explains how the name came about. – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) [I didn’t copy the date and time on the first posts I copied, which are generally the most recent.] Grantville is a composite of the names of two towns in the area: Grant Town and Barrackville. I had originally planned to model my fictional town on Grant Town, because that’s where the power plant in the area was located. (I needed both a power plant and a high school to make the plot work, and I knew I’d have to move one of them. Moving a high school seemed a lot simpler.) But when I came to the area in 1999 to do the research, I discovered that in the 20 years since I’d lived there in the late 70s, a lot had changed. A couple of big malls had opened up on I-79 between Morgantown and Fairmont, not far east of the various small towns along US 250. They’d sucked the life out of the downtowns and turned them into bedroom communities, which is not what I needed. So I drove west to see what might still work. Barrackville had suffered the same fate, but Mannington (which is the westernmost of that little string of towns) was far enough from the malls to have remaining a fully rounded town. The high school is located just outside of Mannington so I switched my plans and moved the power plant. Voila. Such were the origins of “Grantville.” It had nothing to do with Ulysses Grant or any other person named Grant so far as I know. (Don’t ask me who Grant Town is named after. I don’t have a clue.)
Bethanne Kim, Publisher Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine aka: Mannington in 1630s Germany (alternate history series) What does that mean? In 2000, Baen Published Eric Flint’s alternate history novel 1632. Eric lived in Granville, West Virginia when he was working for the unions in the 60s and loved it, so he wanted to show small-town West Virginians making the world better. By 2000, Granville had changed (lots of big box stores), so he looked for a small town closer to his memories and chose Mannington, renamed Grantville in the novel, as his model. In 1632, Grantville is sent back from April 2000 to May 1631 and lands in Thuringia, Germany during the Thirty Years War. They quickly realize they need to make the tools to make the tools to make the things we take for granted in the 21st century, such as light bulbs and toilet paper. Some things, like drugs including penicillin, are simply too far beyond their resources, including their knowledge. For those living in the 17th century, even simple (to us) things like basic sanitation have profound impacts. Grantville is very much a boomtown. Is Grantville identical to Mannington? No, but you have to look close to find differences (other than names). The biggest is that Grantville has a power plant but no oil. Buildings that are demolished in the real world still exist in the 1632verse, particularly near the interchange of Water and Market Streets. The more time passes, the more the two diverge, of course. The massive size of the universe requires extensive coordination. Keeping buildings and geography fairly tightly tied to Mannington makes this easier. For characters, we have something called “the Grid” that lists everyone who came back through the Ring of Fire (the up-timers). Down-timers are people who were already there when Grantville arrived in 1632 or who were born after that. The jobs, birth dates, death dates, family trees, education,…
Bethanne Kim, Publisher: Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine As a small town, up-time Grantville didn’t have a lot of claims to fame. Down-time? It’s the most famous place on the planet, reputed to be a magical place filled wealth and wonders untold. It’s a bustling city whose size is primarily constrained by the local geography. This local geography is one constraint that ensures it will remain smaller than many other cities for the foreseeable future, and that real estate will remain quite valuable. Up-time, the round “Red Barn” run by the historical society and the County Fair were probably the two biggest attractions. They also had Oktoberfest (relatively new in 2000) and the Great Buffalo Canoe Race. Interestingly, down-time Germany did not have Oktoberfest, which didn’t start until the nineteenth century. They did, however, have tons of local fairs, festivals, and other events, both secular and religious in nature, which are not included in this list. Attractions and Annual Events: Breitenfeld Day (September) This is a new down-time holiday to celebrate the victory at Breitenfeld. Canoe Race (May) The Great Buffalo Canoe Race was normally scheduled in May (up-time), but the exact date was based on water flow rates and other weather-related factors. It may need to be scheduled down-time. It also may need to be moved since Fairmont is gone and the new down-stream route may not work for a canoe/kayak race. Description: A canoe race on the Buffalo Creek between Mannington and Fairmont, WV. Saturday, May 6th, 2000. Rain date is May 13th, 2000. Sponsored by The West Virginia Police Reserves. Registration begins at 8:00am at the Hough (pronounced “Huff”) Park Community Building in Hough Park, Mannington. The race starts at 10:00am. Racers may drop over the falls at their own risk, but it is not recommended. The DNR and West Virginia Police Reserves are not responsible for any injuries or accidents. On Sunday, May 7th at 2:00pm there will…