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Featherston had a beard. TR 04:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

He had a beard? Where did it mention that?

Repeatedly throughout the series. I don't mean to chide you, just pointing out a fact. TR 04:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No, you didn't chide me. What kind of beard was it? I don't have the books handy at the moment.

I don't recall Jake had a beard. I always thought of him as cleanshaven although stubbly during the GW. ML4E 16:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just did some quick reviewing of the later books, and descriptions of Jake did not mention a beard. So never mind. TR 17:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I read Jake's first scene in GW:AF where he is chatting with JEB the 3rd. No mention of a beard either but I did wonder if it was mentioned elsewhere. Apparently not. ML4E 02:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Second Great War

I just read through this article for shits and giggles and the GWII section is rather out of place. It's non-chronological, and just touches on major events or ignores them altogether in favor of character analysis, which is a bit repetitive. That's not such a terrible thing in and of itself, but it does put the section out of step with the rest of the article.

Also I noticed there's no mention of the population reduction until near the end, when a one-line throwaway mentions that JF considered the program a high priority. It should get more billing.

I'd fix it myself but I've got to run. Turtle Fan 21:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Atheist vs. Agnostic

I'm curious why you rolled it back. I'm pretty sure Featherston described himself as an atheist. TR 16:37, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

I was more concerned with the excessive spaces between the succession boxes, actually. But since you mention it, though I've not been able to locate the quote, I believe that in the relevant lines Featherston says something to the effect that he lost interest in religion. He doesn't seem to give the Almighty much thought, but he does bring Him up once in a while. If we don't fight hard enough I won't blame God for abandoning us. Probably a rhetorical flourish, granted. Turtle Fan 18:47, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
I don't recall Jake ever calling himself an atheist. Jelay14 03:05, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

The Simpsons joke

Hopefully, that will resolve the issue. TR 16:54, December 20, 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, I suppose it is strange to see, without any explanation, the admins reverting edits which do not include this old chestnut, when qualitatively it's nearly identical to the sort of thing we spend half our time here deleting. The inclusion of links suggests more thought went into it, especially when you see that the links to The Simpsons and Santa's Little Helper are live and are done up in the format appropriate to real characters of their alleged stature. In retrospect, though, expecting everyone to pick up on all of that is certainly somewhat of a stretch. Turtle Fan 20:38, December 20, 2010 (UTC)

Has this section outlived its usefulness? TR (talk) 22:48, June 18, 2014 (UTC)

I would have left the edit alone, except anonomous also deleted all the Categories. However, if TF still wants to keep it, then I won't object. ML4E (talk) 20:18, June 19, 2014 (UTC)
I suppose it's run its course. On a related note, what's that Kaiserreich Wiki thing listed in the bullet below it? Looks to me like someone somewhere along the line decided to plug their own AH. From what I can tell it's far less germane than even The Simpsons and should be deleted as well. Unless I'm missing something. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:18, June 20, 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, it should probably go. TR (talk) 04:28, June 20, 2014 (UTC)

US Cities that Featherston Threatened to Destroy with Superbombs

I know that the Confederacy only built one superbomb that managed to damage the outskirts of Philadelphia. But Jake Featherston also threatened to destroy other US Cities such as Boston and New York City. What were the other cities that didn't get destroyed by superbombs but were threatened to be.

24.147.1.197 13:23, December 7, 2013 (UTC)Jacob Chesley

St. Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, NYC, Boston, Denver, San Francisco. TR (talk) 15:13, December 7, 2013 (UTC)

damnyankees vs damn Yankees

I'm not sure EoGuy's change is valid. While the spelling change is technically correct, it was from a direct quote from one of the books. Turtledove often used "damnyankees" as one word to emphasis how it has become a stock phrase referring to the U.S. We should use whatever HT used in this type of situation. ML4E (talk) 22:46, June 17, 2014 (UTC)

I just changed it back.

EoGuy (talk) 23:32, June 17, 2014 (UTC)

Age Note

Ok, I went ahead and made a quick "executive" decision regarding his age.  I did some reviews over at Amazon.  In AF, we learn that Jake was a boy when the manumission amendment was ratified.  Given what we know, it happened comparatively quickly after the SMW, certainly sooner than 1889, though not by much.  

The first time gaff in Jake's age comes in TCCH, where we learn that he's in his mid-thirties in 1924. Mid-thirties is usually (not universally) defined as between 34-36, so that's probably where Mak first caught that. Since this is the volume where Tennessee also voted for Coolidge, I'd be inclined to let it go, except...

In TG, we learn that Jake is in his early fifties in 1943. Now, again, there isn't an exact definition, but usually early 50s is defined as between 50 and 53. Which would put his date of birth at 1889 or 1890.

But the Constitution still mandated the minimum age limit of 35, which I think HT forgot about when he decided to give Hitler's birth year to Jake (based on this little project, I've come to the conclusion that numbers aren't HT's strength). So I decided to fudge a little bit, moving his birthday to 1886, which would guarantee he'd have been 35 in March, 1922, and might let him be a boy at manumission, while accounting for his rough age estimates for the rest of the series. And it leaves the inconsistency intact. TR (talk) 02:14, July 24, 2015 (UTC)

Since manumission was Longstreet's baby I would have to think he saw it through before his term expired, if only to eliminate the possibility of the next election involving an opposition candidate running on a platform of "I'll renege on Longstreet's stupid promise!" Although I admit that's my own assumption and that I don't have hard textual backup). That means early 1886 at the latest. Now boyhood does begin at birth (assuming you're male, of course) but I'd be very unlikely to say that something from my birth year happened "when I was a boy" rather than "when I was a baby." Unless maybe I was trying to pass myself off as being a bit older than I actually am. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:50, July 24, 2015 (UTC)
I think we're seeing an author's process at work here. Remember HT said that he'd didn't envision Jake as a Hitler analog until sometime in WiH. And then he started playing up the Hitler-Featherston analogs, forgetting the minimum age in the Constitution and his references to Featherston being born a few years before manumission.
Oddly enough, there does seem to be a plausible retcon if HT were so inclined. I can't seem to find direct references to the age 35 requirement in the series. Doesn't mean they aren't there (Amazon search inside can be rather fickle), but if they aren't, then HT could quietly say "the CS amended the Constitution to make the minimum age 30, and I forgot to tell you that." This would be fairly out of character for the conservative CS HT depicted, but I'd be actually less insulted by that than HT saying "oops, pretend it says 'mid-forties' instead of 'mid-thirties' and 'early sixties' instead of 'early fifties'". TR (talk) 16:04, July 24, 2015 (UTC)

Picture?

Could the TVO cover portrait of JF be blown up and used as his Wiki portrait?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 08:34, November 4, 2015 (UTC)

That's the picture we have. We probably can't blow it up anymore than it has been. There's a possibility that the illustrator didn't fill in any of the details of Featherston's face, etc. TR (talk) 17:23, November 4, 2015 (UTC)
This is a slightly bigger image of the book cover [1] but it does look like the three central figures are faceless. ML4E (talk) 20:36, November 4, 2015 (UTC)
It would be nice if it could be used for the category thumbnails, but it looks like it would be too blurry and useless for that.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:42, November 5, 2015 (UTC)
The category thumbnails are a complete mystery to me. There are multiple articles that have pictures should show up in the category thumbnails but don't. Something in the coding, I'm sure. TR (talk) 16:10, November 5, 2015 (UTC)

Snake?

I've seen people refer to Featherston on blogs as Jake the Snake. Is there any canonical justification for this nickname? Is it just a fan-made idea?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 10:56, December 8, 2015 (UTC)

Fan name. Probably a reference to this guy. HT never used it. TR (talk) 16:02, December 8, 2015 (UTC)
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