The Fountainhead Filibuster: Tales from Objectivist Katanga

[Goldstein]

I'm Ayn Rand, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Galtville. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Galtville can become your city as well.

This TL is so deliciously full of win, and I'm sooo subscribed.

[Osakadave]

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

Well, the first chapter is one of Rand's mercenaries mulling over his plan to flee because things have gone pear-shaped, so I guess some things never change!

Indeed. (I'm sure the Persians had a rather different take on the Anabasis
than Xenophon did...)

And Atlas Air flight 520 to Tel Aviv? Good dog, if you are serious with that, it'd be beautiful! (Tie Jo'burg into it and you may well be named a god. )

[Osakadave]

Originally Posted by Dan Reilly The Great

I wouldn't be surprised if nuclear weapons is one of the first things that the Katanga military tries to obtain. Once you have a nuclear armed state, you no longer have as much of a need for such petty collectivist things like armies, just blackmail your neighbors with a couple dozen nuclear warheads which can be set off by one single individual pushing a button.

Originally Posted by Frank Zappa

You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.

Atlas Air flight 520 takes care of two of those. If the POD is Fearless Leader's starting to drink, that takes care of the beer. And a football team of some sort would be, ahem, child's play.

yes, Frank, there is a country...

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by Osakadave

I prefer Machiavelli's more thorough condemnation:

Good old Nicolò know what he was talking, mercenary were the norm in the italy in the middle age, and look how well is ended.
An army who's loyalty is paied, has no real loyalty or will to stand and fight to the bitter end (or even when the odds are not in their side).
The last chapter even is more serious in tone, show delightifully well how over their head are that crowd

[Linkwerk]

Originally Posted by Osakadave

Atlas Air flight 520 takes care of two of those. If the POD is Fearless Leader's starting to drink, that takes care of the beer. And a football team of some sort would be, ahem, child's play.

yes, Frank, there is a country...

"Primus Lager with Codeine: Objectively the best!"

[Dan Reilly The Great]

Excuse me, but I don't quite get the 'pork bellies' reference or the 'Atlas Airlines flight 520' reference.

Is the pork bellies comment meant to be a reference to Mr. Bokasa from FAT?

And is the Atlas Airlines bit meant to imply that Israel is going to give KAtanga a nuke?

[Orville_third]

Originally Posted by Dan Reilly The Great

Excuse me, but I don't quite get the 'pork bellies' reference or the 'Atlas Airlines flight 520' reference.

Is the pork bellies comment meant to be a reference to Mr. Bokasa from FAT?

And is the Atlas Airlines bit meant to imply that Israel is going to give KAtanga a nuke?

Atlas is of course a reference to "Atlas Shrugged". As for Israel, they may get nuclear materials from Katanga, in exchange for the tech.
And too bad this is too late for John Whiteside Parsons. He'd be too religious for Rand...but otherwise, he'd be perfect...and with good knowledge of aerospace and explosives.

[Nebogipfel]

Originally Posted by Orville_third

And too bad this is too late for John Whiteside Parsons. He'd be too religious for Rand...but otherwise, he'd be perfect...and with good knowledge of aerospace and explosives.

Whoa. Never heard of this guy before. An interesting potential POD. Looks like someone who had the potential to become a figure with a cult-like following like Rand or Hubbard ...

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by Goldstein

I'm Ayn Rand, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Galtville. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Galtville can become your city as well.

This TL is so deliciously full of win, and I'm sooo subscribed.

I'm Ayn Rand and i'm here to tell you the truth

[Linkwerk]

Originally Posted by Nebogipfel

Whoa. Never heard of this guy before. An interesting potential POD. Looks like someone who had the potential to become a figure with a cult-like following like Rand or Hubbard ...

Seconded. That guy is crazy.

Which brings me to a point: I'm wondering, once the freehold gets off the ground, what are the thoughts on how weird the expat crowd is going to be? Objectivism is antireligious, but it's also hyper-individualist. There was a lot of really strange stuff going around in terms of pleasure-centric, individual-centric mysticisim in the early 60's.

Figures like Anton LaVay and experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger would probably be drawn to Katanga, with it's "primitivist" allure, hyper-individualism, and total lack of drug and sodomy laws. Does the hivemind think Rand would allow them?


Then again (if I can muse to myself) Katanga could become a sort of anti-Rhodesia. Both desperate for white bodies, but while the Rhodies appeal to white, stuffily Christian middle class/working class types, Katanga offers special appeal for the more, -ahem- open minded settler.

[Linkwerk]

I'm gonna make Kenneth Anger show up no matter what happens because I can't imagine what that guy would do with cameras and a country full of hypermasculine nietzschean mercenaries, brutal violence, and legal drugs.

Slow-mo close-ups of sweaty mercs field-stripping their FALs set to Bobby Darin?

Local animist rituals performed by topless women in shaman masks spliced up with teeny bopper films and fueled by methamphetamine?

[037771]

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

So he's talking specifics now? Logistics? He isn't scoffing at the idea outright. Might just win him over.

Brilliant update, Linkwerk.

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

Local animist rituals performed by topless women in shaman masks spliced up with teeny bopper films and fueled by methamphetamine?

Normal night at a British SU. You've proven you can go better than that.

[Osakadave]

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

I'm gonna make Kenneth Anger show up no matter what happens because I can't imagine what that guy would do with cameras and a country full of hypermasculine nietzschean mercenaries, brutal violence, and legal drugs.

Slow-mo close-ups of sweaty mercs field-stripping their FALs set to Bobby Darin?

Local animist rituals performed by topless women in shaman masks spliced up with teeny bopper films and fueled by methamphetamine?

You don't even have to change the title (or much of the sound track) for Scorpio Rising.

[Maponus]

Does the hivemind think Rand would allow them?

We require more minerals.

Nope, we aren't get any answers from him today.

[Some Bloke]

This timeline has to get a Vlad Tepes award

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by Some Bloke

This timeline has to get a Vlad Tepes award

Just for Katanga, i think the rest of the world will be fine without a lot of people that will be drawn by the place

[Evermourn]

Originally Posted by Some Bloke

This timeline has to get a Vlad Tepes award

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

June 1966, Galtville, Republic of Katanga

Bob Denard was scared. He wasn't used to being scared.

snick

Another round in the mag. Almost full.

I should have stayed a cop


snick

He's been re-filling his Sten mags a lot these days.

Shit, I should have kept selling washing machines.... except that's how I met that bitch in the first place.

snick

Full. He tucked it into his webbing with the others. He got up to leave. There was no way he was going to stay inside the bunker without something to distract him from that fucking idiot former car company executive standing by the telephone board, with his Panama suits and that ridiculous schoolboy part in his hair.

"Well, yes I understand they're using jets but...well j-just hear me out Moise, but I've run the numbers on this and it really is more cost-effective to just re-build the tracks....."

Idiot, scowled Denard as he stalked up the stairs. He walked out of the bunker into the town square.

A dusty square surrounded by art-deco buildings that never had quite filled up. That ridiculous Atlas statue. At least the neon slogans had been turned off when the petrochemical depot got mortared. No juice to ask who John Galt was now.

The square was fuller now, sharp barking voices in Afrikaans, scarecrow figures of, oh, what did she call them? mundanes- one of the less polite terms for 'slave' Bob had ever heard- loading green crates into Unimogs. Something about a counteroffensive, she kept saying. Moving a whole company up to that ridiculous retro-1930's train station. Keep the links to the outside world, she said at the last speech. The world's best would rally to the call.

Even Col.Falques was too scared to tell her the Indians had cut the main line a week and a half ago. It was a trunk line to nowhere.

The distant pop-pop-pops were drowned out by a low howl. It darted up into the sky, a stubby barrel shape, painted bright white with those two black block letters on the side.

Fucking Swedes pulling another gun run, eh? Denard gave an inner smirk. The more CAS missions the Tunnans were pulling, the less they would notice a southbound C-46.

Not too happy about the low altitude...but if that guy dropped supplies on gabrielle and beatrice, he could make it to Rhodesia.

They were good boys- all French, all colons. RPIMS, Legionaires, didn't matter. They'd all decided to take being alive as their severance pay.

Just slip out, real quiet, maybe when the saffies all roll out to the train station......oh, fuck. She's here..

Cigarette chomped firmly in mouth. Grey hair in a bun. Her lumpy, short figure was not complimented by the awkward, overstarched fatigues she had taken to wearing these days.

"What the FUCK are you doing?" She wasn't screaming at him, thank god. She was stalking into the middle of the square. "Get back to work!" She screamed again at the mundanes, still cowering after the Saab's flypast. Slowly, they obeyed.

One of them- one of the bedroom girls they were making haul mortar rounds- slipped and fell down when she tried to lift her crate again.

Those tits don't help you work now, mon chere..

The Leader stalked right over to her. The girl looked down at the stenciled crate, biting her lip, tears streaming down her face.

SHELL 82MM MORTAR HE

Bob didn't think she could read.

"You cow! You STUPID, IRRATIONAL COW!. Can you NOT comprehend logically what will happen if you don't pick up that crate?" The Leader fumbled with her holster, eventually drawing her Hi-Power.

"SAVAGES!

pop.

Into the ground in front of her. The girl whimpered.

pop. pop.

Into her stomach.

popopopopop

Eventually the slide locked back.

The square was silent. Even a few of the saffies had stopped to watch from behind their aviator sunglasses.

"Oh, what?" Her voice rang out. "Are you sorry for her? Do you feel bad?."

She waved the Browning in the air.

"That is EXACTLY the kind of attitude. Which got us into this mess. You all feel too sorry, too weak! And now a bunch of curry-eating INTERNATIONALISTS"- she spat the last word- "are shelling my city!."

"Get a move on, all of you!"



She didn't have to tell Bob twice.

Rand could never understand that giving a crap about other people is what makes civilsation possible. Objectivism is was and always will be juvenile developmentally arrested twaddle.

[Some Bloke]

The Vlad Tepes award is for a brutally dystopian/depraved/generally nasty timeline, right? Which this is shaping up to be if some of the personalities people are proposing is here. Or is the award for specific acts of gory depravity?

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by Linkwerk

1957, Los Angeles, California

These idiots don't know a great story when they see one.

Another spec script angrily slapped down on another Hollywood bar. They must all think she's just another one of THEM.

"It has 'shrugged' in the title" said the little man behind the desk. "Audiences aren't gonna bite on that- and if you want that radio scene in there, you should probably save us the trouble and buy yourself a radio station."

Idiots. Scum. Little empty studio suits caring about what the audience would think. About what their effete little communist actor friends would think. Worrying about profit, and studio returns, and bubblegum-snapping teenagers. Care care care. No action.

Did Homer care what his audience thought? Did Aristotle? Greatness never comes out of whinging about what other people want to see or hear.

Where the hell was that Martini? She needed something to take the edge off of these pep pills. The doctor was right- it got her up in the morning, but it sure made her ragged. Who the hell works at this bar? Who the hell works at any bar?

People who can't Achieve anything greater, that's who.

Goddamn right.

She'd felt so empty since finishing the book. So lost. What to do? She couldn't write novels anymore, oh no, not just that. She had to do something, to reach out, to carry the torch forwa-

"Excuse me, Miss, is this seat taken?"

Broad shouldered figure. Double breasted blue jacket. White pants. Blue eyes, a determined glint in his eye. Looks like a leader. The captain of a mighty ship.

A man of greatness.

"And you're asking why?"

A large smile, reaching to the corners of his eye.

"Because I know a writer in trouble when I see one."

"I'm not in trouble"

Asshole.

"You might be for today." He glanced at the rougly bound tome on the bar "But I think MGM might be in trouble for years to come."

He sat down, ordering a scotch and soda so calmly, so forcefully, she barely noticed, but the whole bar of lazy do-nothings sprang into action.

"MGM doesn't know a good story if it bites them in the ass. I would know." He rested his hand on her shoulder. Not an advance- equality. Strength.

"You're a writer?"

He nodded. "Oh, yes. I've been a great many things. Author. A US Marine. I've seen the sun rise over China and hunted Japanese submarines, and I've also fought to lead people to a brighter future."

"You've recognized me."

He gave a chuckle and picked up his drink, which had come from somewhere.

"I saw you from across the bar. I loved your book. You know, a lot of people don't think science fiction can change people's lives. I know it can."

He winked. Her martini finally arrived.

I didn't order it like he did- concerned only with himself. It gave the others, the lessers so much clairity...

"But what am I going to do, if not a movie? This story is too....it's too powerful for something tawdry like cinema. The masses don't deserve this wisdom." She sighed, and gulped her pep pills.

Maybe they would make her less self-pitying.

"Miss Rand, you of all people should know that you already have the answer to that. You're looking in the wrong places."

He picked himself up from his rakish slouch and looked right. at. her.

"Miss Rand, I sense that you, too realize we live in a world where ignorant, dark forces want to stamp out all better futures. You also know that this era is the era of the individual- improving him, freeing him from negative imprinted events of the past. Some individuals possess incredible personal power."

He understands.

"I've been persecuted for what I believe in. Goverment thugs and grey suits shut me down at every corner when I tried to bring my message to the people. You know what I did?"

The answer came right to her.

"You were trying to reach the wrong people"

"Exactly. I was trying to reach the wrong people in the wrong place. The powers that be- cops, g-men, psychiatrists, hollywood suits...they aren't ready for it. They won't let my message get out. I go over their heads."

"The ones that really matter" mused Rand.

"You're just as sharp as you write- you know, I'm only here in LA for another two days. Just to talk to movie stars, millionaires, people who matter. If I can get them to free their minds....."

"You can do anything."

A long, pregnant pause. A sip of a martini. The energy of the pills filling her.

"So where will you go, after Los Angeles?" It was half question, half request.

"To sea, Miss Rand!" He gestured at his own handsome blue and white garb. "To sea! Where the g-men and the tax men and the naysayers can't find me."

A triumphant grin.

"It's a lot like your own Galt's Gulch, Miss Rand....except I'll take a ship over a gulch any day of the week", he finished with a wink.

It dawned on her.

This was a turning point in her life. Like when her bitch mother gave away her precious, earned toys to charity. Like when those collectivist Bolshevik scum made her cower and flee. This was an awakening.

Galt's Gulch.

The ones that matter.


Somewhere where those empty suits couldn't find her.

Don't make the movie. Make a reality.

He smiled, a teacher's smile.

"You have given me...." she sat up, drawing herself up to her full- minimal- height on the bar stool "...a lot to think about, Mister?"

"Ron."


"Ron Hubbard"





And like that, with a wink and a smile, he left.

I like that, two consumate n'er do well B.S> Artists, B.S.ing themselves right into creating a hell on Earth.