  The recently emerging conviction that thick disks are prevalent in disk
galaxies, and their seemingly ubiquitous old ages, means that the formation of
the thick disk, perhaps more than any other component, holds the key to
unravelling the evolution of the Milky Way, and indeed all disk galaxies. In
Paper I, we proposed that the thick disk was formed in an epoch of gas rich
mergers, at high redshift. This hypothesis was based on comparing N-body/SPH
simulations to a variety of Galactic and extragalactic observations, including
stellar kinematics, ages and chemical properties.Here examine our thick disk
formation scenario in light of the most recent observations of extragalactic
thick disks. In agreement, our simulted thick disks are old and relatively
metal rich, with V-I colors that do not vary significantly with distance from
the plane. Further, we show that our proposal results in an enhancement of
alpha-elements in thick disk stars as compared with thin disk stars, consistent
with observations of the relevant populations of the Milky Way. We also find
that our scenario naturally leads to the formation of an old metal weak stellar
halo population with high alpha-element abundances.
