1. When did the first book imply that?
The series' antisemitism is subtle, but its there if you can read the obvious dog-whistles.
Page 226? where they bring up the Ancient Aliens conspiracy being true, and confirm the existence of Reptilians that eat humans.
One of the main claims in Erich Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods book series is that Yahweh was an alien and the events of the Bible were actually describing an ancient first contact. Hence, Axiom's End implying Yahweh was an alien.
Page 206? brings up Jews being slaughtered in the late 1340's and early 1350's as punishment for the Black Plague. This was brought up randomly while Cora was researching Ampersand's race's prior visit to Earth (in the 1340's and 50's). Considering how Truth of the Divine implies Jews work for the evil side of Ampersand's race, you could argue the first book is implying that the slaughter of Jews was the result of people in the 1350's discovering Jews working for the evil aliens and causing the Black Plague.
2. I don't remember much about the Jews. I know Special Agent Sol Kaplan was Jewish and whassname Perfect Boyfriend resented him because he used to torture terrorists for the CIA years ago, but not much else.
In Truth of the Divine, Sol and the Jewish Democrat politician running for President (instead of Obama) are described as giving each other "knowing looks" multiple times throughout the book (because all Jews know each other) and are implied to be working together on some vague goal that seems sus AF. Cora's Muslim boyfriend as well as Cora are convinced Jews are only involved in the alien rights movement so they can justify killing Palestinians and limiting the rights of Muslims. The Jewish Politician does not refute this. Nothing presented in the book refutes this.
Towards the end of the second book, the mysterious anti-Semitic militia member in the Alt. Right chatroom that gave away Cora and Kaveh's location (leading to Kaveh's death) is implied to be Sol Kaplan. Evidence: Kaplan means tiger in Turkish. The Alt-Right Militia member who knew their location used the handle Axolotl. Axolotls are a type of tiger salamanders. (Get it? Jewish lizards) The etymology thing sounds reaching, but on the exact same page (which displayed the militia's chat log), there was a discussion about "secret Jewish etymology" - presumably as a "hint hint, wink wink".
Also, there's
this interview, where Lindsay Ellis basically implies all Jewish conspiracy theories are true in her book series' universe.
That was the main thing about writing a book where conspiracy theories are kind of proven correct. It’s one of the reasons I wanted my book to be a period piece. In the 90s, conspiracy theories were so fun and common, and writers didn’t have to think critically about the real-world roots of these stories. Chris Carter, who wrote The X-Files, is not a conspiracy theorist. He never was. But The X-Files popularized so many theories that have really scary, serious underbellies. When you look at The X-Files reboot, they tried to reckon with the Alex Joneses of the world and it was awkward and uncomfortable. The X-Files just doesn’t work now. You don’t have to dig too deep to find the antisemitism, the racism, and the misogyny, to find these insidious, reactionary undercurrents in American conspiracy theories.
That’s part of what I’ll be grappling with in the second book in my series, because now that these conspiracy theories have been validated, what comes next?
So yeah...
3. Nah, the financial crisis was not averted. It happened prematurely because people found out the American government had kept secret that aliens existed for the past 40 years, and then the American government.....just sat and continued to not say anything. The wild speculation helped causes a recession which was already on the bring of happening due to the housing market bubble popping. This is supposedly why Cora doesn't just quit her dumb CIA translator job in the first place and fuck off to Starbucks where she'd get paid better: because she's convinced she won't even be able to get a job elsewhere with how bad the recession is.
Towards the end of the second book its described as getting better, and the Cheney cabinet is described as being bipartisan and are presumably competent, considering how they're focused more on fixing the economy than giving aliens human rights.
