Agreed, while this is more realistic, especially considering how bad the Union is already, so far it's not as interesting or entertaining as 1.0. But, I'm still interested! We've got a long way to go.
"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
Listening to any song with the MICKEY MOUSE FMJ scene muted is creepy, but this one is full on WMIT material. Union troops advancing through radiation during Armageddon.
Oswald chapter 2 coming up! The LSD chapter is still coming too, I just decided to wait a chapter or two.
OSWALD: DEAR OLD POP
OSWALD: DEAR OLD POP
Joe Oswald in a photograph taken around 1920
Joe Oswald in a photograph taken around 1920
The aftermath of the American subjugation and cleansing of Europan holdings in North America left millions of people newly minted Inferiors. Or, at least, those who weren't killed outright immediately. Joe Kennedy was among the survivors, with is false Presbyterian identity in stow. When the Yankee troops detained and questioned him, he told them how much persecution and poor treatment he had received at the hands of the "papist bastards." Impressed, he was conscripted into the Canadian Auxiliary Unit, a group of Protestant and sometimes even Fundamentalist Canadians who were welcoming the Americans with open arms. Joe saw little action beyond a few brief skirmishes with fleeing Royal troops, as the Americans didn't quite fully trust the Auxiliary Unit to follow orders well. Nevertheless, Joe's proficiency in combat was not unnoticed, earning himself the Pentagon Star, for courage under fire, and the Cross of Valor, as well as the Canadian Auxiliary Unit Award and the Keybeck Campaign Award at the end of hostilities. Joe routinely helped American troops in Trois-Rivieres (now named "Three Rivers") to round up Irish and other Inferiors, some of whom he knew personally. Much to his displeasure, General Martine was killed in the fighting for Quebec City, depriving him of any chance of righting his childhood wrong.
After the smoke cleared and the Cleansing Month occurred, Joe was extremely worried his charade would be discovered. Several times, he had slipped and used an Irish expression or turn of phrase, which caused him to drown in his own sweat each time. But, thankfully, nobody had ever picked up on it. Or, if they did, they thought it just some odd ramblings from a Scottish-Canadian. When he slowly realized he was probably in the clear, he breathed a sigh of relief and moved far away from Three Rivers and up north to Hudson Bay, where the Hudson Bay Company's assets had been seized by Old Kinderhook. For a time, he busied himself working for O.K. as a financial advisor, with his war time service gifting him an excellent resume. He lied and had told the Americans that before the war he had been a financial officer for a local company, rather than essentially what amounted to a gangster and hired killer.
Joe and Rose Oswald welcomed their first bouncing baby boy on July 20, 1915. Joseph Oswald Junior was a handsome young lad with an adventurous heart. He was also smart from birth, potentially a genius. Joe Sr. was proud of his boy, and knew that if he could forge a destiny for his family, Little Joey, as the kid was known, would be a worthy successor and heir. Rose, all the while, was plagued by survivor's guilt from the war and was horrified by American rule. Joe Sr. always swore up and down to her that this was the only way to live, and he downplayed his role in the Auxiliary Unit and his almost eager welcome of the new American overlords. In 1916, Joe Sr. officially joined the Manifest Destiny Party, something which quite upset Rose. Joe ditched his nice guy act and warned Rose that if she ever showed disloyalty or even a moment's hesitation in praising the name of the Union and President Steele, the entire family could be taken out behind a barn and shot. Joe used his baby boy as a means by which to control Rose.
On one occasion, Rose told Joe she didn't want to see her children grow up in America, as Americans, ignorant of their real background and heritage. Joe grabbed her by the neck in the kitchen that morning and replied, "Do you want to see their festering corpses writhing with maggots? Do you want to be raped by ORRA men as they dump their bodies in a foot-deep trench? Is that what you want? If not, then keep your stories and your G**-damn feelings to yourself, woman!" Rose would never be the same after this. At the time, she was pregnant with their second child, Charles, and the nine months she carried Chuck were some of the most anxious and depressing of her life. On three occasions, she attempted suicide, but each time failing to fully follow-through. Joe was more concerned about the health of the infant than her's, as he was beginning to see her less as the love of his life and more as a potential downfall. Despite all the difficulties, Charles Alasdair Oswald was welcomed into the world on June 1, 1917, with doctors giving him a clean bill of health at birth. Alasdair was chosen as a middle name as it was a Scottish name meaning "warrior." Rose hated the name and viewed it as just one more example of Joe's treachery and abandonment of his own heritage and people. On August 1, 1918, Joe would become Cell Leader of his local branch of the Manifest Destiny Party. On September 19, 1918, Rose took her own life, ending her own misery by hanging herself in Charles's nursery after tucking the child in for the night. No note was found, and Joe had the body in the morgue within an hour after its discovery.
If Joe was distraught at Rose's death, he never showed it. He acted as if he wasn't surprised in the least and quickly buried her at Our Savior Graveyard in Moose Factory, to little fanfare. He never had fully trusted Rose. Now, he was a free man. Not a soul alive knew about his ruse. He hired a nanny named Mary Wilson to take care of Joe Jr. and Charles while he continued to work his way up the ladder of success. Phoenix Oil, headquartered in Moose Factory, peeked his interest when it advertised that it was seeking Canadian-born businessmen to help run their ever-expanding operations. Wilbur Law had founded Law Oil in 1890 and was almost entirely Anglophone and Protestant from the start, and his treason during the war and backing of American occupation had secured him the favor of the Union government. Not only that, the Economic Clans were growing increasingly irked by the near-total monopoly on oil that Texas-based millionaire Rudolf Kuhn and his Pentagon Oil Company currently controlled. The clans actually up and offered control of 90% of Canada's oil supply to Law. American occupation officials transferred almost every old Canadian and Quebecois oil company's assets to Law, who then rebranded his company as Phoenix Oil, representing the rebirth of Canadian industry. Of interest is the fact that the Colonel Ford Company heavily supported Law, while Colonel Goodyear Enterprises backed Pentagon. This was another major defeat for Goodyear, whose years under Ichabod Goodyear saw it suffer great setbacks despite record-high profits during the Great World War.
Oswald was gladly welcomed by Phoenix, and they put him in charge of several struggling oil refineries out west. After rapidly turning them around thanks to his harsh authoritarian streak and natural talent for organization, he returned to Thunder Bay, the state capital of Canada and home of Phoenix Oil's headquarters, to personally meet with CEO Wilbur Law. The two men instantly hit it off, chatting like old acquaintances and sharing stories of the Canadian wilderness. The main draw, though, was the fact that Wilbur, too, descended from a long line of proud Scotsmen. Law was also a rancher, and this in turn led to a discussion where Law proposed buying up most of the ranches in Canada. He thought the Economic Clans wouldn't protest, and many of the pre-war ranches still stood abandoned or running on a skeleton crew. Law liked Oswald and told him he would give him a chance to move on up. He was to go around the Great White North and buy every single ranch and farm he thought could turn a profit and form them into Law Meat and Dairy, a new subsidiary. By 1921, just a year into his project, non-oil related profits were never hire for the megacorporation. Old Kinderhook felt the heat, with fewer and fewer growth options for its Hudson Bay Company subsidiary, and it looked like it might even sell most of its assets to Law just to get out of the region and focus on growth elsewhere. O.K. ended up recovering from the setbacks, but Family Van Buren never forgot Oswald as the man who helped destroy their profit margins in the far north. Joe fell deathly ill in November of 1923, but somehow the tenacious businessman recovered. He would always blame his sudden sickness on a poisoning attempt from the Van Burens, and his subsequent survival on his "rip-roaring Pinnacle blood." Over the next several years, Oswald would remain with Phoenix while his two sons received private tutoring.
However, all was not well back on the homestead. Joseph Jr. was excelling at all subjects and quickly coming into his own as a bright young mind. Charles, however, was proving to be weak-willed and somewhat of a wimp, but also sickly, suffering from intestinal problems and irregular seizures. In private, Joe Sr. worried that the poor health and suicide attempts from his wife during the pregnancy were to blame for his younger son's problems. He greatly feared that the Office of Health and Wellness's 1924 Fluidal Clarity Order would see young Charles sterilized in order to prevent him from ever bearing children with the same defects. Even worse, it could steer an investigation into the health and mental faculties of Joe Jr., as well. If he showed signs of defect, that could leave all his work for naught, with nary an heir to carry on the Oswald legacy. In fact, in early 1926, Joe Sr. contemplated having a lobotomy performed on young Charles to vegetate him and simply move him out of the picture and into a sanitarium. Instead, private doctors for Phoenix Oil performed extensive electroshock therapy on the boy, in line with Scientific Marxism as taught in every leading American medical school since the days of Henry Marx. Doctor's listed the treatment as a success, as the seizures stopped (although he might have simply outgrown them) and a new prescription medicine helped treat his stomach problems. Charles had been taken away from his father and his nanny Mary for months during the treatment, with not a single soul to keep him regular company.
In between the torture sessions, Chuck would read comic books, one of the newest and most popular means of recreation in the Union. The most popular, and his own personal favorite, was Zap Zephyr: 21st Century Pinnacle Man. Zap was the embodiment of Anglo-Saxon Pinnacle vigor, exploring the cosmos with his hearty Zed-Force crew aboard the Spaceship Excelsior. Many of the villains of the Zap Zephyr series were hideous alien creatures without form or faces, and they were rip-offs of the Catholic Europan author Joseph Goebbels' Eldritch Saga short stories from the same time period. Chuck idolized Zap, and wanted to leave the sanitarium and explore whatever the universe had to offer. Elsewhere, a certain young man named Ryan Hendrick was also reading the Zap Zephyr pulps.
An early issue of Zap Zephyr
While Chuck suffered in his own personal quackery hell, Joe Jr. was the apple of their father's eye. Never even troubled with so much as the sniffles, the proud Custer Youth would eventually become an All-American, earning all 77 possible merit awards by age 16 in 1931. When Charles was returned home from "therapy" in 1927, age 10, he was a sad and desperate child, wanting nothing more than his father's approval. In the 1940s, Charles would tell his future wife that:
"When I got back to Thunder Bay with my papers showing I no longer was showing signs of genetic abnormality, I expected my pop to welcome me home with open arms. After all, that had been what he wanted -- for me to be normal! I figured, in my brash foolishness, I finally had made him proud by overcoming my sicknesses as a true Pinnacle Man. Instead... instead he had practically forgotten me. Joey was the pride of his life, the apple of his eye, and he barely seemed to notice my return. Sure, he posed for pictures with me for the first time in years and he made sure I was taken care of, but Joey was always in the picture too. Often Joey was in his full CYB All-American uniform, something which I had had no chance to earn myself. It wasn't my fault I was born the way I was, but looking at my pop, you wouldn't know it."
Joseph Oswald with Joey and Chuck, circa 1930
Joseph Oswald with Joey and Chuck, circa 1930
Finally, in 1930, Joe Sr. finally started to "work" with Charles on "how to be more manly." Now that he was no longer sickly, he would rake him over the coals every day for his inadequacy. Every situation always went back to how much better Joey was than him. How he was a huge disappointment. His father finally was being honest. The former Quebecois Royal stable boy and floorsweep had built himself a legacy and only the strongest would inherit the wealth he had stowed away by the million. To toughen him up, he would have Charles run miles at a time in sweltering heat or bitter cold, with inadequate water. He would teach him fisticuffs, the predominant sport at Yankee colleges. He taught him rounders, hoping to maybe discover a bit of his own self in the boy, but was sorely disappointed when Chuck could barely even hit the ball. Even Joey was terrible at rounders, something which deeply annoyed the normally-proud father to no end. In the early 30s, Chuck would finally begin catching up in the CYB, but it was yet another situation where his brother had excelled early-on, so it wasn't exciting--or even a surprise--that he should do it too. It was expected.
The months upon months of use and abuse finally took its toll on Chuck's fragile mind. He began to absolutely hate and despise his brother, viewing him as a bitter enemy who took his father away from him. No matter what he did he would always be second-fiddle to Joey. In 1934, just a few days before his 16th birthday, Chuck asked his brother to join him on a hunting trip up in the Hudson Bay area. Chuck told Joey he wanted to bag his first moose and have it stuffed for their father's mantle. He brought with him a .308 Colonel Pierce Safari repeater, hand-engraved with the Phoenix Oil logo on its bright brass receiver. It was the only present his father had ever given him that he had any attachment to. On February 20, 1934, a shot rang out about 50 miles outside of Moose Factory. Charles came back home to Thunder Bay alone. In 1936, he would officially join the Manifest Destiny Party and would begin attending good old Benedict Arnold University of Boston, where he would purposely develop his signature accent to hide his Canadian birth and where he would meet several life-long associates. He wondered if his father knew he had shot Joey, or if he believed the avalanche story that the press printed. If he did think Chuck killed him, it would just prove once and for all who was truly the stronger child. With his father's fortune in his future, nothing could stop him now.
Chuck felt a pain in his back one morning after a run on campus.
"Oh well," he thought. "I should probably stretch more before hauling ass like this." He popped some pain medicine and ate some clam chowder before laying down for a nap to sleep the aches away. Later that evening, college medical staff would rush him out on a stretcher....
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I wrote all that in two hours after work tonight while exhausted so excuse any imperfections. They'll be fixed ASAP. I loved bringing up Zap Zephyr for the first time, as well as Joseph Goebbels' Eldritch Saga. Looking foward to writing lots more about both!
And above all it's great to be writing about the psychotic adventures of Chuckie "Pumped Up Kicks" Oswald. Lol We'll be taking a break from focusing on the Oswalds and shift over to LSD and entertainment for the next few chapters and then cover more of the Steele administration. We'll return to our boy Chuck in the late 30s, when we'll read about his days at B.A.U.B.. It'll also probably in short storu format, allowing us to really explore the University for the first time.
And above all it's great to be writing about the psychotic adventures of Chuckie "Pumped Up Kicks" Oswald. Lol We'll be taking a break from focusing on the Oswalds and shift over to LSD and entertainment for the next few chapters and then cover more of the Steele administration. We'll return to our boy Chuck in the late 30s, when we'll read about his days at B.A.U.B.. It'll also probably in short storu format, allowing us to really explore the University for the first time.
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I like to think that this was caused by Rose's ghost to punish both Joe Sr and Charles for what they did to Joey.
Also hell yeah, now we probably have this timeline' s verion of FDR
I mean JFK's massive health problems almost made him FDR IRL. lol He might have gone on to be wheelchair bound if he hadn't been assassinated. At least that's something I've heard a lot.
Little sad that there’s no Oswald dynasty like OTL Kennedys, but I guess it makes Chucks fight to the top a little more impressive doing it alone.
I’m also a little surprised that you took Rose in somewhat of an opposite direction as to her real world counterpart. Our Rose was obsessed with her faith and was on a veritable cocktail of drugs. Having her become a AFC fanatic who jumps in hard with both feet would have been an interesting contrast to Joe and his “pragmatism”
I’m also a little surprised that you took Rose in somewhat of an opposite direction as to her real world counterpart. Our Rose was obsessed with her faith and was on a veritable cocktail of drugs. Having her become a AFC fanatic who jumps in hard with both feet would have been an interesting contrast to Joe and his “pragmatism”
Wait a goddamn moment! I’ve just had a realization from Jehovah themself!
Since the RU has annexed and absorbed Canada and Quebec, does that mean Poutine no longer exists? Or worse yet....American?
Since the RU has annexed and absorbed Canada and Quebec, does that mean Poutine no longer exists? Or worse yet....American?
Now that's the Chuckie I remember! And goddamnit, when are these idiot men going to start loving their damn kids? Besarion, Custer, and now Joe just child-neglected the world into ruin.
Loved the chapter, but with all these horrible mental issues being baked into him from childhood plus what appears to be polio, now I'm wondering how he's even going to keep it together long enough to become President! Classic Oswald at least started off with a basic sense of self-efficacy before losing it to drugs and megalomania, meanwhile Redux Oswald was practically baptized in mercury... Oh, and if it really is polio then he's not going to be able to soldier his way into relevance. Could we see Oswald rising up through ORRA desk/managerial work instead, or heading a technocrat faction that initially pioneers a kind of "de-Steelization" before sliding into worse excess than even Steele could have dreamed of? Either way, I think our man's going to have the resolve to pull through-- it's either that or let Joey have the last laugh. But enough about that, I'm ready for this LSD chapter. I wonder how many lives it manages to ruin in its first couple years out.
GrayCatbird42
Banned
So this summer, I have an internship writing blog posts for a Protestant historical society, and I'm currently writing a piece on the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in America.
Literally every other thing I've read in their archives pertaining to my current research could have stepped out of TTL's RU.
Literally every other thing I've read in their archives pertaining to my current research could have stepped out of TTL's RU.
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I would think Papa Joe would watch his back. Speaking of Sports in the WMIT.
"Now from the Goodyear Islands it is the 43rd Annual Ironman Triathlon. Who will provide their Pinnacle Strength today?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_Triathlon
"Now from the Goodyear Islands it is the 43rd Annual Ironman Triathlon. Who will provide their Pinnacle Strength today?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_Triathlon
GrayCatbird42
Banned
- A newspaper called The Protestant Defender that constantly ranted about the Catholic menace, accusing Catholics of invading (immigrating to) America at unprecedented rates and filled with numerous descriptions of "papist" skulduggery and the moral turpitude of clergy and Catholic nations
- A sermon by a Protestant minister before an anti-Catholic/anti-immigrant society detailing how Catholicism had caused the nations of South America to become "lazy", "divided", and "dictatorial" compared to the Protestant USA
- A pamphlet describing how the statue of St. Peter in the Vatican is actually a statue of the Roman god Jupiter with St. Peter's head, thus making Catholics idolaters
I have a newspaper from the 1890s in Chicago that would make the most ardent tinfoil advocate cringe. The front page story is about how the Pope assasainated Lincoln and how the Vatican wants to take over the world.
It also advocates seances, talking to the dead, has listings for spiritualist healers, mediums, and occultists, and promotes electro shock. I am not kidding. Lol
It also advocates seances, talking to the dead, has listings for spiritualist healers, mediums, and occultists, and promotes electro shock. I am not kidding. Lol
Alright, who told these guys all our plans? Fess up!
I'll have to post the newspaper later if I can. I believe it's called "The Scientific Progressive" or something hilarious like that.
Anti-Catholicism, conspiracies, Spiritualism? Sounds like a perfectly ordinary day in the Gilded Age.