"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
Until one of the female gladiators gave him a 'friendly squeeze'.
Some ideas for TV shows:
- Shark Tank except it's a showroom for pyramid schemes
- Steve Irwin but he hunts marine life, killing something basically every episode
- Charlie's Angels played 100% straight
- The Dukes of Hazzard. No notable differences from its OTL version
- Who Wants To Be A Millionaire but it's a propaganda memorization competition
- The Fresh Prince of Steeleport :^) William Ichabod Smith's been living a carefree life in Boston, but after a run-in with neighborhood miscreants he's sent to live with his well-connected MDP-official uncle in Kanto...
I missed the “marine” part and just imagined a Aussie hunting down various Beasts and Inferiors
“Crikie! Look at that Papist Mick run! You can see the fear, the madness, the sinfulness is his eyes! We should do the merciful thing and put it out of its misery”
Nah, save the pyramid schemes for ITTL's Pyramid. Shark Tank should be about contestants winning prizes by surviving inside of an aquarium-sized tank filled with hungry man-eating sharks in a set amount of time. As for the Dukes of Hazzard, have it set in CoCaro's African colonies while being gratuitously super-racist.
The Truman Show. As in, the in-universe show, once the tech gets far enough TTL for the techno-dystopia angle.
Star Trek but it's about the NUSA in space hunting "Inferiors" that seek to sneakily destroy the NUSA.
I wrote a post in the original thread about Madnessverse Trek. Started off as a kinda campy kids show before Alternate Harlan Ellison took over and turned it into serious science fiction. Then he got busted for having banned literature and the studio went bankrupt
William Dudley Pelley rallying his Fascist paramilitaries for a speech from "Ice Pick Joe."
*Note: I choose this due to the scary similarity William's ideology is to the Republican Union.
Behold, the dank cave from which Madness emanates:
The three books are the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Constitution. lol The president mats were mine as a child. I memorized all the Presidents and recited them in front of my church with no errors at 5. I REALLY liked Presidents.
The computer I bought from my buddy in February made me broke, but boy is it worth it.
The three books are the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Constitution. lol The president mats were mine as a child. I memorized all the Presidents and recited them in front of my church with no errors at 5. I REALLY liked Presidents.
The computer I bought from my buddy in February made me broke, but boy is it worth it.
Last edited:
THE PRIDE OF CHERSONESUS
A B C D E F G H, I got a school in Kalamazoo
Don’t want to boast but I know it's the toast of Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Years have gone by, my my how it grew
I liked her looks in 1888
and in 1924 she's still looking great in Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
K.U., ain't it grand? Even now I can hear the marching band
Am I dreaming? I can hear the screaming!
"GO K.U."
Everything’s O K A L A M A Z O O
Oh, what a school, a real pipperoo!
I’ll hail her through the years, I'll raise up my beers
Hail Chersonesus and Hail Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Mobs of K.U. celebrate their 1925 victory in the Midwest Fisticuffs League
One guess as to where LSD is coming from.
Last edited:
The Destiny Road is going to be this TL's equivalent to the interstate system. I imagine it will be one Steele's biggest impacts on America, honestly. I reallyyyyy love the name "Destiny Road." "Ya go down Destiny Road 64 an' that'll take ya right t' Norris Junction. You take a left by the statue of Warshington, feller, an' then y'all will be right near t' the MDP Rally Grounds." *Colonel Ford putters off*
Joe Steele prepares his runabout to venture down the Destiny Road (colorized, 1925)
"CONFOUND THOSE WHO PASS IN THE SLOW LANE! CONFOUND THEM!"
President Steele explains proper road safety to Pinnacle young drivers (1926)
As requested, Rollarite is back! And with a super-simple 10-step convertible top and an interior made out of an entire herd of endangered plains animals. I liked saying that their tires are Goodyear. It makes sense for Rollarite to be an ally of Goodyear, since it would want to screw Ford.
TTL Palpatine might be a cross between Napoleon and Septimus Severus-- he undermines Republican institutions, gains absolute power and then keeps it by populist policies meant to appeal to the underclasses that make up his mass-conscript armies of galactic conquest (granting all non-humans citizenship in the Empire, for example-- it's good optics and it gets you a boatload more tax revenue). His ideology is that all citizens ought to be equally unfree under the paternalistic Caesar. And then you have a Jedi movement that seeks to restore order/balance (Republican liberty for those who deserve it, "productive work" for the... others) in the universe...
Last edited:
Instead of Emperor or whatever evil sci-fi monarchs in the Co-Prosperity (cultural) Sphere should have the title Quasar, it sounds vaguely like a riff on Caesar and with the name of the OTL phenomenon almost certainly butterflied away it's exactly the kind of sensible chuckle that grabs the attention of me, the reader!
Ah, yes, Lord Zeenoo, Grand High Exalted Quasar of the Andromeda Galaxy. Zap Zephyr will destroy that twisted bully-cad and thief!
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
“If you want to be loathsome to God, just run with the herd.”
“The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'.”
Thought these Kierkegaard quotes quite appropriate for WMIT.
I already have been plotting Himmler and Hess. They're too young right now though. Governor Rudy Hess is coming though.
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
“If you want to be loathsome to God, just run with the herd.”
“The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'.”
Thought these Kierkegaard quotes quite appropriate for WMIT.
I already have been plotting Himmler and Hess. They're too young right now though. Governor Rudy Hess is coming though.
An entire country! I'll steal it! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!- Steele ttl probably
A STRANGE TRIP: PROJECT PERCIVAL
A STRANGE TRIP:
PROJECT PERCIVAL
Dr. Adonijah Blaustein, Father of LSD
PROJECT PERCIVAL
Dr. Adonijah Blaustein, Father of LSD
Adonijah Blaustein was born on September 10, 1898, in the town of Kalamazoo, Chersonesus, to Adoniram Blaustein and his wife Mary Smithfield. Adoniram was a German-speaking immigrant from Schleswig-Holstein, and he came with his parents in the 1880s waves of Germans to Chersonesus. His original name was Reinhardt, but he changed it to Adoniram (meaning "my Lord is exalted" in Hebrew) upon his conversion to American Fundamentalism as a child. This was why he named his son "Adonijah," meaning "My Lord is Yahweh." Adoniram was a career beer-brewer, selling his small-batch brand, "Black Eagle," to local taverns and bars. While they were by no means wealthy, the Blaustein's could afford to send their smart young son to college at Kalamazoo University.
When the 18 year-old Adonijah arrived at K.U. in the fall of 1916, the shadow of the Great War was still heavy. Millions of men just a year or two older than him had perished in far-off trenches. Adonijah had just barely missed out on the fighting. It had been mere luck that his position in the Custer Youth Brigade gave him a job sorting mail in Kalamazoo instead of going to carry messages or beat drums on the front lines of Quebec or California. Adonijah was excited to finally be attending college, and quickly turned his hobby of chemistry sets into his major. By 1925, he was so far advanced that he was made the youngest chemistry professor in the history of the Midwest collegial region. He was known for his very hands-on approach with his students, preferring to do live experiments rather than teach wholly out of books. His approach was sometimes reckless, to say the least, and he was nearly fired multiple times for accidentally starting fires in the chemistry room of the University's famous Jones Tower.
Kalamazoo University was by no means a massive college compared to some, especially those back east in the Ivy League, but it was a well-respected establishment. Founded by Daniel Sherwood in 1888, the college had rapidly grown with the town as the paper industry boomed. So popular was Kalamazoo paper, in fact, that the President's official stationary was manufactured by Casey Paper Products just about a mile from campus. But the pharmaceutical industry was also taking off, with Peterson Pills setting up nearby. This was exciting to Adonijah, who immediately sought out side-work from Peterson. In return for modern laboratory equipment and supplies the young professor agreed to work for free on inventing new active ingredients for medical purposes. This business deal would prove quite fateful, as Professor Blaustein would invent one of the most powerful hallucinogenics completely by accident.
Blaustein was testing out several unknown compounds for medicinal properties when a microscopic amount was absorbed through his fingers. Before long, he reported to Peterson bosses that:
"I have seen a swirling vortex of colors, like nothing you could imagine, and I went on a very pleasant ride through the winding hills and valleys of my mind. After about two hours the feelings left me, but I dare say that this experience was like living in a dream. I shall ingest a greater amount of this drug in short order to report any beneficial side-effects."
Fred Merkwürdigliebe, Chief Counselor of Camp 222
Despite happily volunteering to take more of this unknown drug, Peterson Pills told him that he was too valuable to the company to accidentally overdose himself. Instead, they said, they would acquire a test subject on which Blaustein would be welcome to experiment on. This was where Midas Goldstein's infamous Camp 222 came into the picture. Camp 222, just south of Crawford, Chersonesus, had begun as a labor camp for political dissidents and Inferiors in the 1870s. During the Great War, it had been the locale from which the Black Jew and his English chum tested the vaccine cure for the Beckie Flu, as well as the poison which killed millions of Inferiors during the Cleansing Month. Fred Merkwürdigliebe was now officially in charge of Camp 222 as Goldstein had assumed his position as Supreme Chief of the Office of Health and Wellness after Steele came to power. Merkwürdigliebe received a letter from Peterson Pills asking for a healthy Inferior to be provided for the purpose of medical tests. Many pharmaceutical companies used inmates as lab rats, with the Medical Testing Law of 1917 declaring prisoners of the state could be legally used for medical tests at no charge. The 1917 law also said, however, that a slight increase in taxes for the pharmaceutical companies would more than pay for the cost of prisoner transport and the needed guards.
***
When Matthias O'Hara arrived at the Jones Tower at Kalamazoo University, he must have pissed himself in fear. He was not told where he was going or why, but going to a science lab probably made him more than just a bit squeamish. At each side he had khaki-uniformed camp counselors (the term used for camp guards by the government), wearing their distinctive white envelope hats with "222" pins on one side. O'Hara had been taken to the camp in a white Rollarite armored truck, chained to the floorboards. Now he was in legcuffs and handcuffs, which enabled him to just barely waddle along, and his simple pair of green socks didn't make it any more comfortable. The counselors shoved and pushed him to go faster, expecting him to somehow match the strides of their knee-high lace-up cordovan boots. A cold sweat ran down his face as they marched him to Dr. Blaustein's laboratory. When they arrived, they strapped him to a steel-trimmed, sterile-looking gurney. He knew better than to ask questions. He knew better than to resist. If you resisted at Camp 222, Merkwürdigliebe would have you shot in front of a brick wall. O'Hara had seen it happen to his own brother. No, as he laid on the gurney awaiting whatever cruel fate his Better masters had in store for him, he simply accepted it. He mumbled a Hail Mary under his breath as he stared at the lamp pointed directly at his face. It wasn't on yet, but it looked like it would be very bright.
He wasn't far off with that thought, as the lamp suddenly switched on and a scientist a little on the younger side began to look him over. The scientist was a bit on the younger side of things and he seemed more than a little strange, muttering to himself as he pulled over a rolling cart with various implements on it. He readied a tiny piece of paper, about a centimeter in diameter. "All right, 9045," the scientist began, using O'Hara's inmate number rather than his actual name--did he even know his real name? "Please open your mouth."
Reluctantly, he did as Blaustein ordered. He didn't know what was coming, but he expected death. The counselors remained nearby, fidgeting with their billy clubs and smoking some Morton's Finest. As soon as O'Hara opened up, the scientist dropped the paper into his mouth. It had no taste, other than the typical taste of paper. As he waited to see what was going on, O'Hara watched Blaustein step away and turn to a nearby assistant, a perky-looking girl of about 20 years of age wearing a white knee-length button-up dress.
"What next, Doctor Blaustein?" she asked, craning her neck from the metal stool she sat on, trying to get a better look at O'Hara.
Dr. Blaustein accepted a Morton from one of the counselors and motioned for the assistant to light it up for him. After he blew a smoke ring or two and let out a loud cough, he told the nurse in his rather dry, uninteresting voice, "Well, Miss Stanpipe, we simply must wait for the lysergic acid diethylamide to kick into effect. It sometimes takes a little while, from my experience. But I gave that sod over there 300 micrograms of the stuff, which is far more than I gave myself, so I expect the effects will kick in sooner rather than later. Peterson has promised me replacement test subjects if anything goes awry, so I figured there was no danger drastically increasing dosage."
For the next few minutes everyone waited. The guards finished their cigarettes and busted out a deck of cards. Blaustein and Stanpipe would come over periodically and shine a bright light in O'Hara's eyes and then they would follow it up by checking his vital signs. The Irishman just laid there, wondering if he was going to die. He stared at the wooden clock on the wall, its pendulum swinging back and forth, the seconds ticking by. While he was watching it, the pendulum began to look almost unreal, as if it were contorting itself with every swing, then becoming almost fluid. The hideous wallpaper that covered the lab was a sort of olive green striping on a white background, which now began to peel off of the walls and dance about in mad spirals and unnatural, noneuclidean geometric patterns. As Blaustein and Stanpipe again approached the gurney, their faces were twisted into horrific cartoon characters. Blaustein appeared as an almost elephantine creature, his face gray and wrinkled, his eyes black, and his skin looking leathery and diseased. Miss Stanpipe looked like some sort of creature entirely alien to earth, her skin almost translucent and with her eyes glowing like coals. O'Hara frantically looked over at the counselors, still sitting there playing their card game. Every time one of them placed a card on the cheap pine table the wood seemed to ripple like rolling waves and the cards themselves began to drip off of the table. The guards faces became like flesh-colored gargoyles, menacing and primal, their laughter sending chills through his body as they howled over some joke he couldn't hear, their tongues lolling out like drunken demons. The hum of the lab equipment was almost deafening now, too, and the medical lamps seemed to be brighter than the sun. O'Hara screamed like had never screamed before.
***
With his inmate test, Blaustein had shown LSD to be a very potent hallucinogen with apparently non-addictive qualities, but Peterson Pills said they had no use for such a compound. It, of course, was not long before the government stepped in, curious as to whether this new drug could be useful for less-than-Hippocratic purposes. Fred Merkwürdigliebe ordered Blaustein show his scientists at Camp 222 how to make the drug in exchange for a reward of 1 million dollars, a princely sum in its day. Merkwürdigliebe believed steady administration of LSD could unlock a person's mind and enable total and complete control and brainwashing. This could have uses with everything from planting spies directly inside enemy nations or simply during law enforcement interrogations. Blaustein now saw it as his life's work, and quit his jobs at Kalamazoo University and with Peterson Pills to work full-time at Camp 222, which he liked to refer to as the "wretched hive of scum and villainy." He worked side-by-side with Merkwürdigliebe and his men to continue testing the drug. They tested on everything from the elderly to young children, carefully observing and writing everything down in detail, slowly figuring out the drug's uses.
In 1928, President Steele himself inspected Camp 222 and was informed about LSD's potential. George Patton, newly-appointed Supreme Chief of ORRA following the 1927 death of George Dewey at 90, was eager to see experiments progress. During a meeting at "Solomon's Temple," Goldstein's old personal headquarters in Camp 222, Patton told Steele that he believed the government should begin creating a stockpile of LSD for future uses. He claimed, with the power of this new psychedelic, that total mind control was possible and could potentially change military intelligence forever, saying at the meeting that, "America cannot afford a drug gap with her enemies." Steele was unsure of its true capabilities, but Patton was one of the only men he truly seemed to trust, so he green-lit the operation. Patton, still rolling around in his wheelchair, fought the OHW and Merkwürdigliebe to have Blaustein come work for ORRA, but eventually, Steele stepped in and ordered OHW to allow the move. OHW could still use Blaustein's formula to continue its own manufacture of LSD, but Blaustein's keen mind and future formulas would be property of ORRA.
Patton created Project Percival, named after 18th century English doctor Thomas Percival (ironically also the author of a book called Medical Ethics) to further experiment with the uses of LSD. He brought in many leading scientists in the country to work on Project Percival, such as Gilgamesh Singleton, Harvey Stein, Roy Williams, and Slim Woods. Fort McClellan, a massive facility outside of Trinity City, Texas, that had been an armaments depot in the Great World War, was remodeled and retrofitted for medical purposes. Good-quality free housing for all the required staff was erected nearby. Every room was bugged with listening devices and large patrols of ORRA officers in armored cars and twelve foot-tall barb-wire fences helped keep away any who got curious as to the base's second life. Supreme Chief Patton himself maintained a residency there where he would come every two months to monitor the situation.
One list, called the "Project Percival Mission Statement" by many historians, shows the ambition of Patton and ORRA and what exactly they were looking for.
PROJECT PERCIVAL MISSION STATEMENT:
- Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
- Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
- Materials which will cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity.
- Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
- Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so they may be used for malingering, etc.
- Materials which will cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory.
- Materials which can aid in forcing individuals to adopt new personas and think these personas are their real life.
- Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
- Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
- Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
- Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
- Substances which will produce a chemical that can cause blisters.
- Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
- A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
- Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
- Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
- A knockout pill which can be surreptitiously administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
- A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which, in very small amounts, will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity.
"The Big Six" of Project Percival
Top Row, from left: Dr. Harvey Stein, Dr. Enoch Casey, Dr. Slim Woods
Bottom row, from right: Dr. Festus Mueller, Dr. Gilgamesh Singleton, Dr. Gabriel Snow
Photo taken by Dr. Elijah Johnson
The first main experiments were on a small-scale. They would be given LSD and then were asked to do specific tasks, sometimes very much something they would never do. One Inferior prisoner was asked to chop off his own left ring finger and eat it. The subject, Inmate 2088 (an alleged child rapist) gladly did so with a razor-sharp meat-cleaver and picked his own finger clean to the bone, blood gushing out of his injured hand the whole time. Other experiments were not quite so stomach-churning, with many scientist simply trying to convince their subjects that they were somebody who they were not. One inmate, 1232, a red-haired Irishman, was made to believe he was a Presbyterian minister named Henry Jenkins, and that he had fought in the Great World War in Quebec. Gilgamesh Singleton was in charge of this particular scenario, and he did not stop there. By administering precise doses of LSD for 55 days straight, Singleton actually made 1232 experience shell-shock and frequent flashbacks to a war he had never even seen, complete with recollections of fallen comrades and even local landmarks in Quebec. The inmate the began to believe that the toll the war had taken on him was the reason he was in Fort McClellan, having no recollection of his actual Inferior Irish life. This was a major breakthrough. On the 56th day of LSD, 1232 killed himself by smashing his head against a wall until he hemorrhaged. Singleton was saddened he couldn't continue the experiment with him, but he quickly moved on to other subjects.
By the 1930s, Project Percival was a mammoth operation controlling thousands of experiments all over the country and it had developed many other mind-altering drugs alongside LSD. Even Union troops were not immune to testing, with occasional unannounced medical experiments and the unexpected spiking of the barracks water cooler. ORRA agents tested drugs out on themselves to have a good time or they would sneak it into their cubicle-mate's coffee in the morning and then they would observe and catalog the subsequent results. Patton had to hand down a memo in 1932 to address this problem:
To all personnel and staff at Fort McClellan and in every branch of Project Percival across our glorious Republic: It has come to my attention that certain staff have been carrying on unannounced tests and experiments on their fellow patriot-comrades with mind-altering drugs and hallucinogens. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop right now. Henceforth, the punishment for such feckless and childish pranks shall be twenty lashes and a salary cut. Last Tuesday, an ORRA officer by the name of *redacted* was subjected to an "office prank" by his comrades, who placed over 600 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide into his coffee, making him think his typewriter was trying to kill him and that he himself was turning into a chair. Officer *redacted* then flung himself out of a five-story window, resulting in the cessation of life. No poor bastard ever won a war by being forced to kill himself for the amusement of his coworkers. This is completely unacceptable in the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs and for whosoever is contractually obliged to work for us. You have Inferiors for testing. Quit playing games or the quartermaster will be obliged to take the cat out of the bag. This is my only warning.
- His Excellency,
Supreme Chief George Patton
Office of Racial and Religious Affairs
Supreme Chief Patton
- His Excellency,
Supreme Chief George Patton
Office of Racial and Religious Affairs
Supreme Chief Patton
Many other drugs would be developed by Project Percival during this heyday of research, such as mescaline, a refined peyote-based drug which saw immediate popularity with the Council of Jehovah. ORRA saw few uses for the drug and so gladly sold the rights to Peterson Pills, who began to market it on the shelves as Dr. Pete's WonderPowder. By 1933, the bitter tasting WonderPowder was being marketed as Dr. Pete's WonderPills, with the powder enclosed in capsules to avoid tongue-contact. WonderPills were wildly popular with "armchair spiritualists," who wished to emulate the Council of Jehovah as they toyed with their spirit boards. Musicians also enjoyed WonderPills frequently, especially in the booming jazz industry.
Another drug--this one invented by Harvey Stein as part of Project Pervical--was methamphetamine. Methamphetamine was developed as a way for Yankee troops to avoid sleep altogether and to be able to fight at any second and take the fight to the enemy with almost supernatural speed and vigor. The initial tests, such as during the 1930 Texas-New Canaan Wargames, were wildly successful, with Patton telling President Steele that the Union was capable of waging "lightning war" upon its enemies. This came during a time of economic decline and increased tensions with the South American Neutrality Pact and the Eduist menace of Brazil, so Steele looked favorably upon the use of meth to propel any possible future assault. There were many tests that showed that meth was highly-addicting, but these results were swept under the rug and troops were told it was very safe. When rumors spread of its addictive nature, they "reformulated" meth into what they called Boogie, which was sold over the counter by New Antioch Pharma beginning in 1932. The target civilian demographic for Boogie were over-the-road truck drivers, ambulance drivers, and industrial workers. Boogie was fairly affordable and could be bought for about the same price, in pill form, as five rolls of Sweet Victory brand Go-Go Pep Candied Lozenges, but they were marketed with the catchphrase, "Boogie keeps you hoppin' all day long and into the night!" Over time, as the negative effects of Boogie became increasingly clear, New Antioch Pharma began to decrease the actual amount of meth in each pill in exchange for monstrous doses of caffeine. However, methamphetamine would remain in the active ingredients listing. Despite growing concern, the military retained a massive stockpile of Boogie in case of a war.
Last edited: