Sorry, another couple of George Griffith's works, although he didn't refer to them as Tsar Wars himself.  Bit early for that play on words, y'know?  You can get the skinny here:

http://www.heliograph.com/buy.shtml

Basically, "Natas" is the head of a terrorist-but-in-a-good-way(?) organization devoted to stopping war and overthrowing all the tyrannies of the Earth (especially Tsarist Russia, who Natas has a personal beef with), which they accomplish mostly by lucking out and running into the dead-broke inventor of the world's first viable airship engine as he's thinking about killing himself.  They proceed to build a small fleet of airships and intervene selectively in the sort-of-worldwide war that breaks out shortly thereafter.

Angel of the Revolution ends with the world at the feet of the triumphant Aerians, who found a Utopian society in the mountains of Africa after destroying the ability of other governments to wage war and saving Britain from a Franco-Russian invasion complete with subs and war zeps.  Syren of the Skies takes place 150(?) years later, when the Aerians, following the prophetic commands of the long-dead Natas, give control of the world back to the national governments.  This leads to all sorts of entertainment, as the last heir of the Tsars promptly steals an Aerian skyship, duplicates it, and starts a world war that gets interrupted by most of the life on the planet being destroyed by a cosmic fire-cloud.

No, really, a cosmic fire-cloud.  Maybe we do need terrain rules in Iron Stars, eh? 

For my money, much better stories than the rather better-known Honeymoon in Space, although you still have to allow for a fair amount of dated "period" thinking...Anglo-Saxons are inherently a superior race, all of Islam is a united militaristic juggernaut, democracy is an inherently flawed concept that will lead to the blind rule of the uneducated masses, that sort of thing.  Enjoyable despite that, and (amazingly) carried by Barnes & Noble.

Rich

So, how much of this is compatible with the Iron Stars background so far?

Well, not much if you stick to Griffith's timeline, which is a bit silly in spots.

But you could very easily have the Red Russians as catspaws or allies of that shadowy organization known as the Terror, lead by Natas and his lovely-but-ruthless-in-a-good-way daughter, Natasha.  And Natas, who claims to be a prophet with uncanny powers of the mind, might very well be a dupe of the Martians, who presumably are up to mentally dominating the odd Terran mystic or two.

The airship inventor (who was so colorless I've forgotten his name...typical period hero) presumably drowned himself after hearing the news about Cavor.  So, no free ride for Natas and company.

The World Wars are (presumably) still on the schedule in IS, just delayed and with different players than Tsar Wars.

The Earth being destroyed by a cosmic fire-cloud is still over a century in the future, which gives mankind plenty of time to conquer the rest of the Solar System, invent FTL travel, or just figure out how to stop the silly thing.  I can't see a spacefaring humanity (and the British Empire in particular) rolling over and accepting their fate the way they did in the books.  Surely some clever engineer will invent planetary-scale ether props by that time, allowing them to just move the Earth out of the way, or ram and disperse the cloud with some useless piece of real estate (pish...like we really need Uranus!), the latter option being tidier in the long run.  And you know how Her Majesty likes things tidy. 

Rich

Only suggestion I would make is for there to be different 'fingers'  in at least the political and military 'arms'.   Why would the Martians (or Natas) put all of their eggs in one basket?  Seems like any large organization is going to draw unwanted attention and get smashed.  Smaller ones might get lost in 'background noise'.

But of course...that's where the 'criminal' arm comes in.

And thinking on why the Marsies have been sort of tardy in attacking the Earth.  Perhaps they never discovered Cavorite on their own.  But if they now have Earthling allies.... 

So they've spent the ensuing years building their new aether fleet.

A bit behind the times...and going back to the Martian Ship portion of this subject.

Given 10 flashes of light, and assuming a martian cylinder launch for each one, no relation to size of cylinders is given.  Therefore, each flash was visible on the surface of mars from earth via telescope that would seem to indicate a very large projectile.  Martians being tri-limbed and such, it would seem reasonable to assume their space craft would be as well.  Kind of like a three limbed starfish looking thing. (this visualizes rather elegantly) Stack 10 or more of them into a cylinder formation for launch...and with 10 launches you have a 100 ship armada heading for earth, each armed with heavy heat beams and magnetic fields rather than armor and projectiles.  The British LPs would be least effected by the shields.

Consider each tripod walker a lander type craft, two or three carried under each arm of the ship as a blister pod, dropped from orbit to earth...and it creates a rather respectable global sized invasion force.

Why can't I spell "Invasion"?

:oops: I really do need to go back and re-read the original WotW.  Your quote pretty well indicates the cylinder sizing...(darn it! I liked the space starfish. *chuckles*) 

Just throwing ideas out from early posts in this thread.

Oh well...the starfish can come later with the metal men and friends.  :wink: