Opus 2026-247: Acre Again

One of the sub-genres of science fiction is alternate history.  There are stories that chart history in a world where the South won the Civil War.  I remember enjoying one that had the earth invaded by alien armies in the middle of World War II.  It can be very entertaining if well written.

Currently I am reading a history of the Military Orders of the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitalers.  I just got through the part where the last Christian citadel was smashed and the survivors fled.  It was gruesome.  Of course you need to understand that the standards of the day were totally different than today.  It was still gruesome.  Basically every Christian who was not able to get on a boat was doomed.  The first step was to rampage through the city looting, killing and raping.  Somehow there were people who survived and they faces a very certain future:  slavery.  That was it.  Most men were killed, women raped and sold, children sold.  It was a brutal time.

My thoughts turned to modern times.  What if you were writing a story in the future about the fall of the modern nation of Israel to the forces of Islam that surround it.  It would be a replay of the Middle Ages.  The events of Hamas attacking on October 7 would give you a preview.  There would be slaughter that made the Holocaust look like a playground.

And, if the media plays its assumed role, we would know nothing about it.  Just like they ignored the real conditions in the Soviet Union and acted like there were no concentration camps in Nazi Germany you would hear nothing about the millions of Jews executed.

And what about the aftermath.  Would there still be Christian tours of the Holy Land?  Would Americans still be getting baptized in the Jordan?  Probably.  The mass graves would not be labeled.  The fees would be much higher but the potential for making money off of suckers would be a strong attraction.  Of course there might be occasional hiccups as tour buses were bombed but that would be blamed on Zionist terrorists.

Let us hope that those stories are never real history.

homo unius libri