Note: Originally posted May 2nd 2008

One of the most interesting things about Dawn of Victory, in my most humble opinion, is that the back-story is constantly being expanded upon by both members of the DoV team, and fans of the mod. It has created a diverse and rich universe beyond anything I could have dreamed, and it’s still growing.

I think it’s very fitting that the DoVoVerse is being expanded by fans, as that’s how the DoV story got its start. There has been much discussion as to the relationship DoV has with Harry Turtledove’s work, and I hope this journal thing will provide some insight into our decisions regarding his books.

I am a fan of the WorldWar, and Colonization series of books, and I really liked the idea of having both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union exist well past the 90s and into a future of space travel. Originally, Dawn of Victory was going to be much closer to Mr. Turtledoves books, but there were many problems. The first of which was the aliens.

The “Tosev Timeline” wasn’t so much about the battles fought between mankind and The Race, but rather the social impact each race had on each other. The race wasn’t some horrible merciless enemy, but rather a species that thought they were doing mankind a favour by introducing them to their Empire. The Race took humans prisoner, were imprisoned in return, created embassies, and even worked together with mankind in some instances. While this made for an interesting series of books, in my opinion it wouldn’t have made a very exciting mod.


Exactly the same

Small changes were made at first, the Race became the Scinfaxi, (yes I know it’s the name of the Sub from Ace Combat 5, I was planning to change the name to something cleverer but never did) more akin to the aliens from War of the Worlds, and their ultimate goal became one of extermination rather than occupation. Then, as the setting moved further in the future, far from the setting described by Harry Turtledove, it became to necessary to invent more and more details to explain the nature of the DoVoVerse.

Finally, with the help of many, the entire story gradually changed to what you see today, it isn’t a faithful interpretation of the WorldWar series, the only elements retained from that take place hundreds of years before the mod does, and serve only to explain how things ended up the way they did.

I really hope Mr. Turtledove doesn’t ask us to change our interpretation, I think he might appreciate how Dawn of Victory is an alternate history of an alternate history, but if the need arises for us to alter the details surrounding the Scinfaxi invasion of Earth, it will be but a small part of the overall story.

Also, to the guy who got pissed off we used the NATO logo, NATO probably has bigger problems then Opals’s lack of originality.